Cover image of "The Poet's Game," a novel about a spy in Moscow.

When we first meet Alex Matthews, he is on an errand for his old friend, the CIA Director. Matthews had once served as Moscow Station Chief. Now, having left the Agency nine years earlier, he is in Moscow running an investment firm. But this night he is on his way to meet BYRON, a spy he’d recruited but last seen a decade ago. As he sets out from his hotel, he could not know that the operation would threaten his life, his freedom, his family, and his livelihood. It would also set off a hunt for a mole in the CIA and promise proof that the President of the United States had been compromised traveling as a private businessman in Moscow. This is the setup in The Poet’s Game, Paul Vidich’s outstanding seventh novel of espionage, as we follow Alex Matthews as a spy in Moscow.

A former high-ranking CIA spy is back in action

Alex Matthews thinks of himself as “an ordinary middle-aged man.” He’s nothing of the sort. Matthews is a brilliant performer as CIA Station Chief and a world-class success as a contrarian investor. And everyone around him envies him his private life. He’s the father of a fourteen-year-old son and recently married a beautiful younger woman whom the boy is coming to accept. And though he created some resentment by leaving the Agency, he maintains a close set of friends who are still on the job there, including his wife, Anna Kuschenko. They’re all in senior positions within the CIA—and all will be caught up in the hunt for the mole who blew that operation in Moscow, aborting Matthews’s mission to meet BYRON.

The Poet’s Game: A Spy in Moscow (Alex Matthews #1) by Paul Vidich (2025) 336 pages ★★★★★

Photo of the Kremlin and St. Basil's in Red Square, a familiar setting in this novel about a spy in Moscow
Red Square, Moscow, includes two of Russia’s most familiar images: the Kremlin to the left, St. Basil’s Cathedral to the right. Image: National Geographic

Spy novels grounded in CIA history

In a half dozen previous spy novels, Vidich built his plots around prominent events or characters in CIA history. Markus Wolf, the Stasi head of counterintelligence, for example. William Morgan, soldier of fortune executed by Castro. James Kronthal, aide to Allen Dulles, who committed suicide to save the agency from the embarrassment of his Soviet betrayal. and Frank Olson, a murdered bioweapons scientist in the notorious MK-ULTRA LSD scandal. They’re all set in the Agency’s past. Now, in The Poet’s Game, he has shifted the timetable to the current era, setting the story midway through the first Trump Administration. Once again, he has centered the tale around a matter well covered in the news media: the debate over claims that the KGB had gathered evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Donald Trump that made him vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

Kompromat on the President is the central plot device

InThe Poet’s Game, BYRON promises to deliver proof that Vladimir Putin possesses kompromat on the man in the Oval Office and has, as a consequence, become a Russian asset. Is he? Most of Vidich’s characters believe he is. And that belief drives the sense of urgency behind their efforts to exfiltrate BYRON from the clutches of the criminal Russian regime. But is it true? What will we learn in the end when BYRON reveals what he’s promised? Be prepared to be surprised as The Poet’s Game rushes toward its shocking end.

About the author

Photo of Paul Vidich, author of this novel about a spy in Moscow
Paul Vidich. Image: author’s website

The Poet’s Game is Paul Vidich‘s seventh spy novel and the first set in the current era. Prior to turning to writing, Vidich had a distinguished career in music and media at Time Warner, AOL, and Warner Music Group, where he was Executive Vice President in charge of global digital strategy. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Vidich lives in Manhattan with his wife. They have children and grandchildren.

You’ll find all of Paul Vidich’s historical spy novels at A newcomer who writes superb spy novels. The Poet’s Game is the first set in the current era. It’s also the first that introduces what is obviously a continuing series character.

Be sure to check out Red Notice: A True Story of High Finaunce, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder (A true story of high finance and murder in Putin’s Russia). It’s one of the books on which Vidich based his account of Alex Matthews’s experience running an investment firm in contemporary Russia.

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