I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
The Night Agent
by
Matthew Quirk
political thriller in a Kindle edition that was published by William Morrow on January 15, 2019 and has 432 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
A standalone political thriller revolving around an FBI agent under a cloud in Washington D.C.
My Take
This was really good, and it got my heart rate up and racing. Yep, it is convoluted, and Peter’s obsession with trying to make up for his father got to be so annoying. I mean, I got it!!
“Congress, …[the] party … are only loyal to their donors.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Quirk uses third person global subjective point-of-view, although the perspectives are from only a few characters, including Peter, Rose, Diane, and Dimitri.
Obviously, the characters play a part with a fairly active pace, but the plot is mostly action with betrayal after treachery after betrayal after…well, you get it. It’s hard to know which side of the line a number of the characters stand in this as they switch back and forth.
Escapes; suspicion; horror; betrayals right, left, and center. Where The Night Agent falls down is in the show, which makes it all the more impressive that Quirk pulled me in so well and got my heart to racing.
The Story
From his earliest days as a surveillance specialist, Peter has scrupulously done everything by the book, hoping his record will help him escape the taint of his past.
He knows intimately how one broken rule can cost lives. Nowhere is he more vigilant than in this room, staffing the night action desk, waiting for a call that might never come.
Until tonight.
At 1:05 a.m. the phone rings. A terrified young woman tells Peter that her aunt and uncle have just been murdered and that the killer is still in the house with her. Before their deaths, they gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: “Tell them OSPREY was right. It’s happening. . . “
The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the government.
Peter must take the rules into his own hands and do the right thing, no matter the cost.
The Characters
FBI Agent Peter “Bear” Sutherland has carefully followed the rules for most of his life. Ever since his father, a section chief in FBI counterintelligence, died. Now Peter staffs the night action desk at the White House next to the situation room with an occasional basketball game with the president. Leah is his ex-fiancée who lives in New York these days.
Greg is Peter’s godfather, a civil engineer who specializes in soil and drainage, and a good friend of Peter’s father. He must have been since Greg inherited Joust when he died.
OSPREY is the source who started the Campbells on this course.
White House
President Michael Travers is from a Midwest family who had made good. Perry is one of the president’s personal aides and a basketball player. Secret Service agents assigned to the president include Daniel Akana and Justin Collins. Diane Farr is the White House chief of staff; Julian is her aide. Ashford is the director of the CIA; Berson is director of the FBI; and, McLintock is the attorney general.
Brian is a friend of Peter’s who works as an analyst for the National Security Council. James Hawkins is Peter’s boss and the senior advisor and a veteran of the FBI’s national security division, serving as the president’s in-house man on counterintelligence and terrorism. Mark is a CIA agent. Jessica is the watch officer from the Pentagon.
FBI
Vito is a friend of Peter’s from his Quantico days. Theo works in the director’s office.
Officer Vazquez is one of the men at the first crime scene. Detective Swinson is investigating an unlucky mugging.
The homeless Rose Larkin makes that call. Henry and Paulette Campbell are her uncle and aunt under contract with the Department of Commerce. Their place is a sanctuary for Rose.
The Metro crash was…
…an “accident” that took place a year ago…that Peter survived. Katie Chen, an intellectual property, IT, and corporate security specialist, was part of the crash investigation. working at Heller and Wolff, a massive law firm.
Delilah takes calls on a soft rock station. Carolyn runs an Airbnb rental.
GIDEON is an independent operator, a legendary spy.Ileana appears to be his partner. Ellen Farr‘s estate is tended by Diane Farr as executor and the home was originally owned by Graeme Farr, a director at Christie’s Auction House in Washington. Emily L. Krysanova of ELK Conservation, Inc, is a book binder.
The Russians
Josef Vikhrov is the Russian president who had killed his way to the top. The nothing of Dimitri Sokolov is an assassin who also plays violin. Carolina had been his wife. Eugene Balakin, a.k.a., Vikhrov’s Shovel, is a member of the president’s inner circle and a former FSB enforcer. He is also the former president of the Kamensk-Uralsky Metallurgical Works with half-a-dozen homes. Anton Novikoff is a midlevel intelligence officer who made a deal that set off a panic.
BEECH is the traitor.
The Cover and Title
The cover finds a well-lit White House at the center with a royal blue night sky as a background for the bare branches of trees framing the sides. A testimonial is at the very top in white followed by the title in a distressed white font. Starting at the bottom of a second-floor window, the title is offset with each of the three levels gradating from a warm yellow to an orange in the same distressed font.
The title is all about Peter, The Night Agent at the White House.
