Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy: A Novel

by Paul Vidich

Overview

A stunning new espionage novel by a master of the genre, Beirut Station follows a young female CIA officer whose mission to assassinate a high-level, Hezbollah terrorist reveals a dark truth that puts her life at risk.

Lebanon, 2006.

The Israel-Hezbollah war is tearing Beirut apart: bombs are raining down, residents are scrambling to evacuate, and the country is on the brink of chaos.

In the midst of this turmoil, the CIA and Mossad are targeting a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist, Najib Qassem. Najib is believed to be planning the assassination of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is coming to Beirut in ten days to broker a cease-fire. The spy agencies are running out of time to eliminate the threat.

They turn to a young Lebanese-American CIA agent. Analise comes up with the perfect plan: she has befriended Qassem's grandson as his English tutor, and will use this friendship to locate the terrorist and take him out. As the plan is put into action, though, Analise begins to suspect that Mossad has a motive of its own: exploiting the war’s chaos to eliminate a generation of Lebanese political leaders.

She alerts the agency but their response is for her to drop it. Annalise is now the target and there is no one she can trust: not the CIA, not Mossad, and not the Lebanese government. And the one person she might have to trust—a reporter for the New York Times—might not be who he says he is…

A tightly-wound international thriller, Beirut Station is Paul Vidich's best novel to date.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639365128
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	116,423
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Paul Vidich is the acclaimed author of The Matchmaker, The Mercenary, The Coldest Warrior, An Honorable Man, and The Good Assassin. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, LitHub, CrimeReads, Fugue, The Nation, Narrative Magazine, and Wordriot. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

08/07/2023

This taut, nuanced spy thriller centered on Lebanese American CIA agent Analise Assad further establishes Vidich (The Matchmaker) as a new master of the genre. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, Analise is assigned to a joint mission by the CIA and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, to assassinate Hezbollah militant Najib Qassem. After she aborts the original operation to avoid killing bystanders, she must formulate a new plan to eliminate Qassem before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Beirut to broker a cease-fire. Posing as a UN interpreter, Analise infiltrates Qassem’s inner circle as a volunteer at the school his children attend. As the timeline of Analise’s plan and Rice’s arrival converge, she becomes the target of terrorist bombings, Israeli retaliation, and even a treacherous CIA mole, all while struggling not to fall for the New York Times reporter she’s seduced in attempts to throw him off her scent. Vidich ably describes daily life in a war-torn setting and convincingly highlights the dangers Analise faces as a woman in her position. He brings the action to a satisfying conclusion but leaves a few threads dangling, opening the door for future installments. Fans of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, and John le Carré will be eager for more. Agent: Will Roberts, Gernert Company. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

In assessing the ‘best’ of the year lists that have come out so far, we determined that one of the areas of fiction that gets short shrift in these lists is spy/espionage fiction, so we determined to use our decades of reading and reviewing experience in this area to come up with the following list. 2023 is a great year for the publication of excellent spy fiction. If you are a fan of this type of entertainment, you are in for some real treats. Enjoy. George, Jeff and Steele.

Deadly Pleasures’ Best Espionage Fiction of 2023

This is an outstanding thriller that has its roots sunk deep in a conflict that has shaped modern history.

Shots Magazine

With Beirut Station, Mr. Vidich has written his most emotionally involving and suspenseful book yet.

Tom Nolan

"First and foremost it's a compelling story, one that gripped me from start to finish, but it also awakened in me a dormant interest in the complex politics of the Middle East."

Mystery and Suspense Magazine

Vidich has firmly established himself in the very top flight of espionage writers, with a series of slow-burn character studies putting him in the line of le Carré. In his latest novel, Beirut Station, he adds a shot of adrenaline into the mix, as his story follows a young Lebanese-American CIA agent involved in a joint operation with Mossad in Beirut 2006. She soon begins to suspect a deeper conspiracy in play, and when she voices her concerns, becomes a target herself. The interiority of Vidich’s characters is as complex as ever, but the meticulous operations work will keep you turning the pages and moving deeper into the chaos.

Dwyer Murphy

[Vidich] writes with an easy elegance about the ethical dilemmas of espionage and their human cost. Beirut Station is one of his best.

Financial Times

"Vidich’s oeuvre already solidifies his place in the genre. Readers unfamiliar with his work will be dazzled by his vision."

Peter Handel

"Extraordinary. A compelling spy novel set during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Mal Warwick

Beirut Station is a perfectly executed fictionalized snapshot of a time when the Middle East was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Paul Vidich has created a story worthy of Le Carré and Graham Greene.

Authorlink

"There is a casual elegance to Vidich’s spy fiction, a seeming effortlessness that belies his superior craftsmanship. Every plot point, character motivation and turn of phrase veers toward the understated, but they are never underwritten. The Matchmaker is an ideal entrance into Vidich’s work, one that should compel new readers to plumb his backlist.

The New York Times Book Review - Sarah Weinman

Praise for The Matchmaker:

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

From the Publisher

"Readers interested in learning more about the Stasi should look for Paul Vidich’s novel The Matchmaker, [which is] tightly written and carefully plotted. It grabs you in the first pages and never lets go.

J. E. Leonardson

"With a capable female protagonist, Vidich brings a modern sensibility to the complex machinations of the traditional spy novel."

The Washington Post - Becky Meloan

"The Matchmaker is an intelligent, atmospheric, richly written and quietly gripping spy novel. Vidich also deals sensitively with real moral issues around spying and there is a depth to his themes. In all, it is a very impressive achievement. It is still very early in the year, but I think that The Matchmaker will end up being one of the best spy novels of the year.” - Jeff Popple, Murder, Mayhem and Long Dogs

"The absorbing drama/mystery takes hold of your attention as Anne’s plight unfolds. The looming fall of the Berlin Wall intertwined with the fate of Anne and the spy she’s tasked with finding make for a riveting read.

The Manhattan Book Review - Philip Zozzaro

2023-09-09
Blood flows in Beirut as an American spy tries to stop a killer.

In 2006, civil war rages in Lebanon, and Lebanese American Analise Assad is a spy for the CIA. Her non-official cover is with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and she leads “two lives, one open and known, a lady working for the United Nations, the other a mask known only to Mossad and the CIA’s station chief.” She is at the end of her tour and is glad to be moving on, but the CIA extends her stay for two months. President George W. Bush is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Beirut to broker a peace deal, and Analise must stop a terrorist named Najib Qassem who plans to assassinate her. Qassem is deemed to be such a serious threat that he “can’t be allowed to live,” and to find him Analise exploits his love for his 13-year-old soccer-playing grandson. Kill Qassem? Of course, Analise thinks, but don’t take out innocent civilians with him. Don’t blow up a neighborhood to get one person. Mossad’s David Bauman—and Israel—are less discriminating. “We both love Lebanon,” he tells Analise, “but we hate what it has become.” She has an uneasy working relationship with Bauman, an experienced spy. At one point when he makes a suggestion about her future, she reflects that “she knew him better the more he lied.” Meanwhile, car bombs explode, and Israel attacks the suburbs of Beirut. During all this, Analise’s marriage is crumbling, and she occasionally goes to bed with a story-hungry news reporter named Corbin. He would betray a friend before he would sacrifice a scoop. The Mossad station chief sums up what keeps the blood flowing in the streets: “In our work it is better to avenge the dead than mourn them.”

There is plenty of death to avenge in this tense, fast-moving novel.

Kirkus Reviews