Michael R. Davidson
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Harry Connolly is in Warsaw on his first assignment as a CIA officer. When an agent reports that the KGB has penetrated the CIA, Harry is drawn into a dangerous Cold War confrontation.
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“If you’re looking for a spy novel involving James Bond-type agents, blinding lasers, and bloody gunfights, go somewhere else. But if you’re seeking a crisply-written, well-plotted, and most of all, correctly detailed thriller of what it was like to fight the Cold War from someone who was really there in the trenches, defending the West, then ‘A Peculiar Profession’ is for you. Highly recommended.”
Brendan DuBois, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author
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Detective Krystal Murphy is called in the middle of the night to a murder scene - a man slumped in a car with his skull shattered by bullets. The ensuing investigation leads to places neither the criminals nor the government want her to go as the deaths pile up.
Michael R. Davidson brings Krystal Murphy back into action in an explosive thriller that enmeshes her in a scandal no one in Washington wants to see exposed.
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AT LAST !!!
"The Dove" finally has been released from its captivity in the basement of the CIA!
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Those of you who like Harry Connolly will be pleased to see him back in action at a time well before the events that turned him into Ewan Ramsay.
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It's 1985, and Harry Connolly is in Paris.
The times were precarious. The Soviet Union, still engaged in a debilitating, losing war in Afghanistan, was teetering, but still not vanquished. We still lived in a bi-polar world. The Cold War dominated international relations. The deadly contest between the CIA and the KGB raged on.
Espionage had not yet come to rely very heavily on gadgets. Agent communications were still in the form of secret writing, short wave radio, one-time pads, and hands-on street work – case officers pumping adrenalin and agents sweating bullets. In other words, what one might term classical tradecraft. It was risky business.
Then Harry found himself in Moscow to meet an untested agent.
Reviews for "The Dove
The Dove is superior spy fiction from an author who has lived the life his fictional characters now lead.
Happily stationed in Paris, and taking full advantage of its cultural and gastronomic delights, CIA field officer Harry Connolly is pulled into an international spiral of intrigue when he is sent to Moscow to meet a potential new agent. But can the man from the KGB be trusted and is his intel genuine?
The Dove is a great read. Michael R. Davidson has effectively used his insider knowledge of the CIA to create a convincing and gripping narrative. The descriptions of Paris especially are first rate and would not seem out of place in a work of literary fiction. The tradecraft is here, but so are the tools of an accomplished author, and they are used to tell a convincing story.
The Dove is superior spy fiction in every sense.
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Alex Shaw - Internationally acclaimed author
The magic of John le Carre's spy fiction doesn't come from its daring action sequences. There really aren't any. It comes instead from putting us alongside ordinary people trying to do their best in extraordinary circumstances and introducing us to the dread and anxiety which dogs their working lives. 'The Dove' was written by a man who spent most of his own working life as a covert operative for the CIA, working mostly in denied areas. He knows the real intelligence agents, the ordinary joes who are out there every day getting done what needs to be done. Sometimes his life even depended on them. Who better to wrap you up in a spy story that is both atmospheric and credible?
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Jake Needham - Best Selling Author
1987, the Cold War. Reagan is president, Gorbachev is General Secretary. The Russians are mired in Afghanistan, ground down by attrition, death by inches. What if there’s a way to bleed them out faster?
CIA’s chief of operations at the Paris station is approached by French security. We have a potential KGB defector, in Moscow, they tell him. But for us it’s a Denied Area. We don’t have the resources to operate there. You do. Harry Connolly, CIA operations, knows Rule One: There are friendly countries, but no such thing as friendly intelligence services. What do the French want in return?
It turns out the French want the product. They’ve just been beat out of the biggest arms deal in history by the British, a total of 20 billion pounds sterling, to the Saudis, and the French smell a rat. The defector in Moscow has inside information on the arms sale.
The defector has access to the material because his skill set is technology theft. KGB has a compromised asset inside the Saudi deal, but more to the point, CIA could use the defector’s knowledge to map Soviet weaknesses. Where are the gaps, what’s on their shopping list, which specific
technology problems are they targeting?
And we’re off. Paris to Moscow, Paris to DC. London to Riyadh, London to Geneva. Harry has good tradecraft, and he begins to pull the threads together. Everybody’s got a piece, from the fixer for a Saudi prince, Mohammed Attar, to the British procurement minister James Abbott, to banker and bagman Wafiq al Salah, to the Novosti correspondent Nikolay Kozlov, a KGB spook under journalistic cover, and the hapless defector-in-place Stepan Barsikov, giving classified information to the West because he’s defeated at love. The journey crosses personal landscapes as much as physical distance. And interestingly, not everybody learns everything. There are things left hidden, or unspoken.
And the last question, the historical one, about the end of the Soviet Union, did they fall or were they pushed? It’s perfectly plausible, as The Dove suggests, that the Russians could be goaded into overreach and overspending. Imperial ambition, with an economy on the edge of collapse, and political hardening of the arteries, the Old Guard unable and unwilling to accept reform, meant the system was on life-support, and ready to collapse of its own weight. They were perched on a narrow ledge. Gravity did the rest. Oh, and maybe just a small thumb on the scale.
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David Edgerly Gates - Best Selling Author
Reviews
"It takes a real spy to write a great spy thriller. Michael Davidson was, and he has. Like John le Carre and Ian Fleming before him, Davidson is the real thing, a former intelligence officer turned writer of riveting and utterly authentic spy novels. Davidson is the best writer of spy thrillers since Robert Ludlum."
Jake Needham, best-selling author of eight international crime thrillers
"I just finished "Krystal" night before last, and I hold Mr. Davidson personally responsible for depriving me of a good night's sleep! I got sucked into this detective thriller, a notable departure from Mr. Davidson's primary genre (espionage), and couldn't put it down until reaching the last page at 3 AM! He most effectively developed the character of the heroine (Krystal), previously introduced in two of his espionage thrillers, and wove an intricate murder mystery plot for her to try to solve. In contrast to his previous books, which featured stunningly detailed descriptions of overseas locales, "Krystal" is strictly a domestic affair. That said, his description of Miami and its environs, particularly Calle Ocho, have whetted my appetite to pay a visit! In short, Mr. Davidson's venture into crime fiction was highly successful, and I hope he returns to it in the future."
KRYSTAL - Amazon.com
... weaves an intriguing tale of betrayal and deception, as would be expected from a man who has lived it. Michael Davidson's experience with the CIA, living and working through the Cold War, lends a level of depth, clarity, and credibility.
THE INCUBUS VENDETTA - Amazon.com
Michael R. Davidson knows how to turn what some would consider a far-0ut conspiracy theory into a plausible, well-explained story, and because he knows how to write action and vengeance, especially the quick, cold calculation and vicious, animal-like instincts of an intelligent, determined, well-trained man or woman under duress.
INCUBUS - Amazon.com
KRYSTAL is a departure from Mr. Davidson's usual repertoire of espionage thrillers but quite likely his best work to date. The author takes the sympathetic character of Krystal Murphy, whom we met briefly in his previous novels, and makes her the central character in an exciting murder mystery that maintains the urbane and cosmopolitan feel of Harry's Rules and Incubus. Mr. Davidson's familiarity with the locales he describes comes through loud and clear as it does in all his novels, something that makes us feel a part of the plot. I thought the author's development of the Krystal Murphy character was particularly skillful and made the story that much more compelling. Mr. Davidson tells much of the story from a woman's point of view, a daunting task, I am sure, but one he pulls off in convincing fashion. This is a well-paced, fast-moving story with enough twists and turns to keep the reader on the edge of his/her chair. KRYSTAL is undeniably a good read and a novel I recommend wholeheartedly.
KRYSTAL - Amazon.com
