“Dryden follows up his superb debut, Red to Black (2009), with a riveting sequel... Red to Black reinvigorated the classic Cold War espionage genre. Moscow Sting, with its clever, devious, conflicted characters, its tension and verisimilitude, and its complex but fully plausible plot, is every bit as good.”
- Booklist
Nostalgia runs deep in today’s Free Fridays title, Moscow Sting by Alex Dryden—a complex and captivating espionage novel that brings the genre back to life with a modern twist.
This follow-up to Dryden’s critically-acclaimed Red to Black focuses on former KGB Colonel Anna Resnikov, who abandoned her position to marry a British MI6 agent. When her husband is assassinated, Anna quickly learns that while the Cold War may be over, the ‘new’ Russia still has a brutal way of sending a warning to those who step out of line.
With her brash act of defiance, Anna now faces a wide swath of international enemies—from Putin’s forces, to the CIA, to an American private security firm. All are convinced that her husband passed along secret valuable information before his death. Now Anna must call on her KGB training and a keen sense of self-preservation to protect herself and her son—leading to a thrilling globe-trotting adventure.
The thrills continue in Dryden's next book, The Blind Spy, available for pre-order now.
Free Fridays Recommends
Each week, we ask our featured author to recommend a book or author that you may want to check out. Since authors are such passionate readers themselves, we thought you might like to find out what they love to read, too! Here’s what Alex recommends:
The novel I've read most often is The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carre. It is set mainly in Hong Kong and south-east Asia and concerns the attempted kidnap by MI6 of a Chinese naval scientist. The main character, Jerry Westerby, an upper-class, hippy-ish, old school Brit and gentleman to the core, is an unusual find in a le Carre novel – he’s a man of impeccable decency. There is something beautifully painful watching him 'do the right thing' and yet he can also be entirely ruthless in doing it. The rich cast of secondary characters fascinates and, behind all, sits George Smiley. Smiley does not have Jerry’s simple honesty or core virtues. He is an intellectual engaged in mind games with the enemy. As the British writer William Boyd wrote, “The world of the spy novel may be the best analogue of the human condition, writ large.” That is why I like writing spy novels and The Honourable Schoolboy is the one I return to. 
dhaupt
on
Wow Jeremy, great choice and I ditto Baste's comment.
Thank you and B&N for free Fridays 
deb
