Name: Megan Murray 's review of The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk
Item: The Night Agent
Rating: 5
Author: Megan Murray

Matthew Quirk

“ONE OF THE BEST THRILLERS TO COME ALONG IN YEARS.” —MICHAEL CONNELLY To save America from a catastrophic betrayal, an FBI agent must stop a Russian mole in the White House... No one is more surprised than FBI Agent Peter Sutherland when he’s tapped to work in the White House Situation Room. When Peter was a boy, his father was suspected of selling secrets to the Russians—a breach that cost him his career, his reputation, and eventually his life. Now Peter’s job is monitoring an emergency line for a call that has not—and might never—come. Until tonight. At 1:05 a.m. the phone rings. A terrified young woman named Rose tells Peter that two people have just been murdered and that the killer might still be in the house with her. One of the victims gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: “Tell them OSPREY was right. It’s happening...” The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted. To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands, question everything, and trust no one. “Matthew Quirk moves into David Baldacci and John Grisham territory with The Night Agent.” —JOSEPH FINDER

A Novel

The Night Agent

Megan Murray 

“Plenty of breathless one-more-chapter, stay-up-late suspense wrapped around a meaty and timely story ... irresistible.” — Lee Child To find a Russian mole in the White House, an FBI agent must question everything. . . and trust no one To save America from a catastrophic betrayal, an idealistic young FBI agent must stop a Russian mole in the White House in this exhilarating political thriller reminiscent of the early novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci. No one was more surprised than FBI Agent Peter Sutherland when he’s tapped to work in the White House Situation Room. From his earliest days as a surveillance specialist, Peter has scrupulously done everything by the book, hoping his record will help him escape the taint of his past. When Peter was a boy, his father, a section chief in FBI counterintelligence, was suspected of selling secrets to the Russians—a catastrophic breach that had cost him his career, his reputation, and eventually his life. Peter knows intimately how one broken rule can cost lives. Nowhere is he more vigilant than in this room, the sanctum of America’s secrets. Staffing the night action desk, his job is monitoring an emergency line for a call that has not—and might never—come. Until tonight. At 1:05 a.m. the phone rings. A terrified young woman named Rose tells Peter that her aunt and uncle have just been murdered and that the killer is still in the house with her. Before their deaths, they gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: “Tell them OSPREY was right. It’s happening. . . “ The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted. To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands and do the right thing, no matter the cost. He plunges into a desperate hunt for the traitor—a treacherous odyssey that pits him and Rose against some of Russia’s most skilled and ruthless operatives and the full force of the FBI itself. Peter knows that the wider a secret is broadcast, the more dangerous it gets for the people at the center. With the fate of the country on the line, he and Rose must evade seasoned assassins and maneuver past jolting betrayals to find the shocking truth—and stop the threat from inside before it’s too late.

Jeremy Anderberg

The writing of this book is nearly as interesting a story as the book itself. For any book to come to life, it often takes at least a couple years. So when Quirk started outlining and writing this thriller novel with a Russian mole angle, it was only tangentially in the real headlines. Then things of course picked up, and Quirk was forced to revise and make the plot even twistier and even more outside the realm of truth. In his opinion, that made for an ever stronger novel than what he originally envisioned.

I have to agree.

I received this book sometime last year, but with the news the way it was I didn't quite have the courage to actually pick it up and read it until after the Mueller report came out and it became clear that nobody in the White House was an actual agent of Russia.

In The Night Agent, main character Peter Sutherland has an FBI job which places him on night duty in the Situation Room, literally staring at a secret emergency phone line and waiting for it to ring. (Quirk has said this role was inspired by an actual job.) Then one night, it does, and there's a terrified woman on the other end who's on the run from some murderous Russians.

Turns out there's a mole or two in our fictional White House. How did this woman (named Rose) get this secret number? What were the foreign killers after? How high up does the espionage go? How far will the spies go to protect themselves?

It's a classic political thriller, with plenty of twists and turns that are actually surprises. The ones I suspected to be spies didn't turn out to be, and the ones I didn't trust turned out alright. It's always nice to encounter a thriller where you don't guess the plot from the beginning.

Plus, short chapters and lots of snappy dialogue made for a very quick and fast-paced read. It was the perfect book after having busted through thousands of long pages about Lyndon Johnson in the previous couple months.

Can't wait to pick up whatever story Matthew Quirk comes up with next. This was very reminiscent of early David Baldacci novels, which I loved.

Megan Murray &
The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk

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Megan Murray &The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk

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Megan Murray &
The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk