Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Espionage
A "masterful" and "riveting" thriller about a female CIA agent whose
extraordinary facial recognition powers lead her into the dangerous
heart of the Soviet Union—and the path of a killer who shouldn’t exist
(Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author).
She never forgets a face.
He never forgets his prey.
It
is 1990 when Melvina Donleavy arrives in Soviet Belarus on her first
undercover mission with the CIA, alongside three fellow agents—none of
whom know she is playing two roles. To the prying eyes of the KGB, she
is merely a secretary; to her CIA minders, she is the only one who can
stop the flow of nuclear weapons from the crumbling Soviet Union into
the Middle East.
For Mel has a secret; she is a “super
recognizer,” someone who never forgets a face. But no training could
prepare her for the reality of life undercover, and for the streets of
Minsk, where women have been disappearing. Soviet law enforcement is
firm: murder is a capitalist disease. But could a serial killer be at
work? Especially if he knew no one was watching? As Mel searches for
answers, she catches the eye of an entirely different kind of threat:
the elusive and petrifying “Black Wolf,” head of the KGB.
Filled with insider details from the author’s own time working under the direction of the U.S. Department of Defense, Black Wolf
is a riveting new spy thriller from an Edgar-nominated crime writer,
and a biting exploration of the divide between two nations, two
masterminds, and two roles played by a woman pushed to her breaking
point, where she’ll learn that you can only ever trust one person:
yourself.
Kathleen Kent's Black Wolf is a cold war era thriller about a young woman with an extraordinary ability to never forget a face once she's seen it. The story is set in its entirety in Belarus aka Byelorussia in 1990. August, 1990, Minsk, a four person team from the CIA led by Dan Hatton, Julie Reznik, Ben Franklin, and Melvina Donleavy has been sent to the country as representatives of the State Department to see what kind of financial incentives the US can offer the soon to be independent of the soon to be former Soviet Union to prevent uranium from falling into the wrong hands.
Melvina has a secret she can't share with anyone. Trained by the FBI, recruited by the CIA, she's deep undercover by orders of the CIA's Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations. This is her first mission. Why was she sent along with Dan's team? She's supposed to be an observer only. She is under no obligation to tell her team what her real purpose here is. Because of her unique abilities, her task is to prevent weapons grade uranium or any nuclear weaponry from leaving the Soviet Union and falling into the wrong hands, specifically those of Iran who would love to have a nuclear bomb of their own.
If the Russians find out about Melvina, she would likely disappear into Russia's psy-op program forever. Melvina must also keep her head on a swivel because she can't afford to be caught by the legendary Spy Hunter known as the Black Wolf aka Martin Kavalchuk who focuses on Melvina after several women she came in contact with were found murdered. She soon finds herself targeted by a dangerous serial killer who has been targeting women for the past 3 years. Nobody, including the legendary Black Wolf, has any idea who the killer is.
As the mission progresses, with a little help from Dr. William Cutler, Melvina and her team must weave an intricate path through a country that is still processing what happened during World War II, as well as the Chernobyl explosion that destroyed much of their crops. They also have to deal with a very active KGB that is listening in on every conversation and watching their every move. I am not a newbie when it comes to Kent's writing. She's has done a masterful job of blending fact and fiction, creating the stage in a historic place and that is to be expected from her former life.
In the authors own words:
"Black Wolf is based loosely on the author working as a civilian
contractor to the Department of Defense in Belarus and Kazakhstan in the
early 1990s. The Soviet Union was in chaos after the fall of the Berlin
Wall, and the U.S. government was very concerned about the more than
10,000 nuclear weapons and tons of chemical and biological weapons
poorly stockpiled and carelessly guarded as the republics split apart. Many of the characters in the novel are composites of real
people — the Bratva (mafia), the KGB, the sex workers, scientists and
apparatchiks — whose paths I crossed, and who left a lasting impression
on me."
