Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg: A Thriller

by Mishka Ben-David, Dan Gillon (Translator)

Overview

Mishka Ben-David, internationally bestselling author and former high-ranking officer in Israel's world-renowned intelligence agency, is back with a thriller that will take the reader straight to the heart of spycraft.

Yogev Ben-Ari has been sent to St. Petersburg by the Mossad, ostensibly to network and set up business connections. His life is solitary, ordered, and lonely—until he meets Anna. Neither is quite what they seem to be, but while her identity may be mysterious, there is no doubt about the love they feel for each other.

The affair, impassioned as it is, is not part of the Mossad plan. The agency must hatch a dark scheme to drive the lovers apart. So what began as a quiet, solitary mission becomes a perilous exercise in survival, and Ben-Ari has no time to discover the truth about Anna’s identity before his employers act. Amid the shadowy manipulations of the secret services, the anguished agent finds himself at an impossible crossroads. 

Written with the masterful skill of a seasoned novelist, and bringing to bear his years of experience as a Mossad agent himself, Ben-David once again delivers a powerful look into the mysterious Israeli intelligence agency in this action-packed page turner.

Customer Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468313475
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	05/24/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mishka Ben-David holds an MA in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ben-David served in the Mossad for twelve years, becoming a high-ranking officer, and he is now a full-time novelist living outside Jerusalem.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/28/2016
Former Mossad agent Ben-David (Duet in Beirut) makes the most of his professional expertise to craft a complex and moving story of a reluctant operative’s attempts to return to a normal life. When Yogev Ben-Ari was recruited into the Mossad, he organized operations against enemies of Israel, such as a Syrian negotiating with North Korea to acquire chemical weapons. To his dismay, he soon becomes more than just a planner and observer when he’s designated to pull the trigger on a target in Hong Kong. That shift, and the deceptions it entails, causes tremendous tensions in his marriage, already affected by the time he must spend away from his wife, childhood sweetheart Orit; the two of them are desperately trying to conceive a child. The narrative effectively toggles between that relationship and one that Yogev begins with a Russian woman during an assignment in St. Petersburg. Convincing tradecraft, coupled with a plausible look at the inner life of a spy with a license to kill, will remind readers of the best of John le Carré. (May)

Publishers Weekly

The novel has a solid sense of intrigue and suspense, and its depiction of the world of international espionage feels accurate (as it should, since the author is a former Mossad agent). The characterizations are precise, too: these aren’t stick figures in a spy story but real people in a real environment. A nice blend of classic spy-novel conventions with a thoroughly contemporary setting.

Booklist (starred review)