Mark Henshaw

Mark Henshaw continues the Red Cell series with an “authentic, compelling, and revealing” (Jason Matthews, NYT bestselling author of Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason) thriller following CIA analyst Jonathan Burke and agent Kyra Stryker, as they try to save the CIA’s sources in Russia after a major intelligence breach leaves Moscow Station in ruins.

When a body with Russian military tattoos is found floating in a lake outside Berlin, the CIA immediately takes notice. The body is identified as the director of Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Nuclear Research, who is also a recently recruited CIA asset. The murder coincides with the defection of one of the CIA’s upper-level officers—Alden Maines, the man who pulled wounded case officer Kyra Stryker out of a safe house in Caracas years before. Jaded after years of cleaning up the messes of incompetent political appointees in dangerous foreign posts and now passed up for promotion, Maines has decided to cash in as a double agent for Russia.

But while Maines dreams of off-shore bank accounts and a new secret life, Major General Arkady Lavrov, director of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) has other plans. He announces Maines’ defection to the world and pumps him for every last ounce of intel, including the names of every agent in the CIA’s Moscow Station and their assets working in the Kremlin. But why would Lavrov burn an asset whose intel and access could pay dividends for years to come?

Traveling from Langley to Berlin and finally to Moscow— working black without backup—analysts Jonathan Burke and Kyra Stryker are up against their most formidable enemy yet, and their lives and the fate of America’s most important assets in the New Cold War hang in the balance.

The Fall of Moscow Station is “a real-life thriller...It’s happening now, and Henshaw delivers with a bang” (Jason Matthews).

Reviews and praise for
The Fall of Moscow Station

"Real-life intelligence analyst Henshaw (Cold Shot, 2014, etc.) has set this tale of international intrigue in the immediate future...Gen. Arkady Lavrov, head of [Russia's] military intelligence agency and chief of the Foundation for Advanced Research (FAR), enjoys stepping on Yankee toes, slipping stealth technology to China and nukes from Iran to Venezuela...Now, rumors suggest the clandestine-weapons-trading FAR will sell an EMP weapon to Syria. The situation worsens when CIA agent Alden Maines offers to turn mole for the Russians—this needs better motivation—but is double-crossed. Lavrov personally tortures Maines and gets the identities of every CIA asset in Russia. The clandestine-weapons quandary takes a back seat as Red Cell leader Jonathan Burke and Stryker make a Maines damage-control run to Berlin. People die. Next attempting to rescue Russians working for the CIA, Stryker goes lone-wolf to Moscow... 

The settings seem spot-on, whether a luxurious Moscow CIA safe house, an abandoned Soviet military base in eastern Germany, or the Oval Office, especially as Henshaw’s cast of Washington old hands deals with a skeptical young President Daniel Rostow.

Henshaw’s narrative is a high-tension page-turner, and his tough-minded, independent, and deadly Kyra Stryker is ready to run with the likes of Reacher or Bourne." —Kirkus (full review here)

"The Fall of Moscow Station is [Henshaw's] third thriller.  It is gritty, authentic, and revealing. One can smell the stuffy Embassy conference rooms, hear the rabbity bureaucrats shifting blame, and feel the hopeless weight of black Moscow as betrayed Russian sources flee for their lives. And do not mess with heroine Kyra Stryker: She’s after her former mentor who’s just defected to the Russians with all the secrets of Moscow Station in his head. Henshaw lives in this shrouded world, and he has written a stem-winder novel, a celebration of the silent war of modern espionage. The Fall of Moscow Station is authentic, compelling, and revealing. 

CIA officer Kyra Stryker is operating black in Moscow, a target on her back, trying to save Russian sources running for their lives.  A real-life thriller...[that] gives us a harrowing glimpse of the secret world of modern espionage.  It’s happening now, and Henshaw delivers with a bang." — Jason Matthews, New York Times Bestselling Author of Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason