Walking Back the Cat: A Novel

Summary

A mesmerizing espionage thriller from the bestselling author of The Company

Robert Littell has made a name for himself as one of the foremost authors of literary spy thrillers. Here, Littell abandons his usual East European milieu to focus on New Mexico, where a Sovietera KGB agent, code-named Parsifal, has been living under deep cover. Reactivated by a new controller for some particularly brutal "wetwork"—murder—Parsifal's suspicions are aroused. Fearing a double-cross, he begins, in espionage lingo, "walking back the cat"—retracing the operation to find the source of the deception. His manhunt leads him to an Apache-run casino where he crosses paths with CIA operatives, Apaches, and Finn, a disillusioned Gulf War vet with his own investigation to pursue.