Muir's Gambit

In this debut novel, a CIA attorney tries to elicit a murder confession from the man who recruited him into the agency.

When a bomb blows up Charlie March and his yacht in 1991, the dying CIA officer in his last few words utters the name Nathan. The agency quickly sends legal counsel Russell Aiken to interview Nathan Muir at the Florida island home he rents every September. The two men have a strong connection: Muir recruited Aiken years ago. As for March, he recruited Muir from the Marine Corps in 1950s South Korea. Muir, who claims he didn’t kill March, talks about working for his mentor, including hunting a spy in Korea. Yet Muir’s history teems with sordid details and secrets, from his reputed discovery that March had “gone bad” to his fallout with Tom Bishop, another CIA recruit and field officer. But it turns out that Aiken has also been involved in some unsavory deeds, such as using his skills to help Muir jump legal hurdles. As Muir’s decadeslong chronology inches closer to what Aiken hopes is a confession, the CIA operations officer has a bevy of surprises for the attorney. TV/film writer Beckner’s riveting series opener takes characters from a Hollywood script he penned—the Tony Scott–directed Spy Game (2001). The author packs this epic narrative with plot turns and real-world events, such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. The cast is also multilayered, especially Muir, Aiken, and Bishop. Aiken, for example, has struggled with alcoholism and just found out his wife is cheating on him. The novel, primarily encompassing the crucial interview, is relentlessly tense, as Muir knows things that should stay hush-hush and certainly tells lies at least some of the time. He’s both debonair and chilling and drops such memorable one-liners as “We’d go where the Cold War blows.” The open ending offers a thorough resolution as well as more than one shocker.

This smashing espionage tale kicks off what promises to be a smart, indelible series.