Spies in Winter: A Tale of Russian Victory in Ukraine
BOOK REVIEW: Dead Hand: A Novel
By James Stejskal/Double Dagger Books
Reviewed by: Kenneth Dekleva
The Reviewer: Dr. Kenneth Dekleva is a former Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist with the Dept. of State and is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, UT Southwestern Medical Center and a Sr. Fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. He has written two novels, The Last Violinist and The Negotiator’s Cross. Views are entirely his own and do not represent views of the U.S. Government or UT Southwestern Medical Center.
REVIEW – James Stejskal is a retired CIA officer and Army special forces veteran who served overseas in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He is also the author of “The Snake Eater Chronicles,” thriller series as well as several highly regarded military histories. His newest novel, Dead Hand, is a terrific and prescient thriller, set in a time after Russia has won the Ukraine war. It’s filled with geopolitical intrigue, mayhem, and a fascinating cast of characters.
Stejskal, who says he never wore a uniform in his 23 years of military service in a ‘tier 1’ special forces unit, and later, as a CIA officer for 13 years, and as someone who worked solo for much of his espionage career, definitely knows his stuff, and brings a level of authenticity to his enjoyable and heralded “Snake Eater Chronicles.”
With his newest novel, Dead Hand, Stejskal has achieved even more – a frighteningly prescient view of eastern Europe and Russia after its victory in Ukraine, and the terror of what Russia and its leaders might do next. While I have greatly enjoyed the previous novels in “The Snake Eater Chronicles” series, Dead Hand is even better.
Stejskal, who also served for many years in a deep-cover military unit in Berlin, knows his Cold War history, and starts his novel with a bang: a long-time senior Russian asset, close to the Russian leadership, has uncovered plans – based upon a Cold War doctrine (hence the novel’s title) for a nuclear first strike by a Russia emboldened after its victory in Ukraine. The asset wants to share the plans with the Americans, but only on his terms; as his American handler says, “he doesn’t take direction.”
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The agency wants to bring Joshua, a former military special forces veteran and CIA officer, out of retirement to assist in a covert operation, providing support to an “elderly gentleman,” Gabriel, a legendary Mongolian American, non-official cover officer (NOC), who has spent decades working overseas against the hardest of espionage targets – Russia, China, and North Korea, among others. So over glasses of Talisker scotch, plans are hatched and Joshua and Gabriel meet with their asset in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The plot bobs and weaves, with meetings in various countries, including Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Malta, Germany, and Russia. There are agent meetings, dead drops, surveillance detection runs, a liaison with the Lithuanians, assassination attempts, and secretive conferences in Washington with the highest levels of agency leadership. Stejskal has also written a pleasant sub-plot into the novel, involving Matt, Joshua’s son, a young Army special forces officer detailed and embedded in the Lithuanian military in Vilnius.
Added to this tale, is the story of a father and son’s mutual relationship with the intelligent, enigmatic, and beautiful Lithuanian naval intelligence officer, Commander Melis. The core of the novel lies in the close, jesting, and humorous relationship – it reminded me of the Sempai-Kohai dynamic present in Japanese martial arts, (also in the movie “Rising Sun,” with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes) – between Gabriel and Joshua (whom Gabriel fondly calls “Grasshopper”).
Stejskal’s novel, in his rendition of Gabriel, offers an unusual and realistic portrait of the life and work of a NOC. And Stejskal, having been a solo operator for decades of his career, and having worked with NOCs, knows of what he speaks.
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These intelligence officers are brave, dedicated, and courageous men and women, who serve overseas, often in dangerous settings, without diplomatic cover or protection, and where capture can mean expulsion, arrest, torture, imprisonment, and even execution.
Successful NOCs have tended to be, like Gabriel, multi-lingual and multi-cultural, easily able to blend and integrate into the societies in which they live and operate, while serving overseas for many years. NOCs possess a quality which the Germans call Fingerspitzengefühl, an intuitive flair and sense of things, or what the Russians call чуствителност, or sensitivity.
NOCs must be able to tolerate long years of solitude and isolation, operating alone, apart from the ‘uterine environment’ of the American diplomatic community, and they tend to possess high levels of emotional equilibrium, patience, and the ability to tolerate ambiguity.
The latter portion of the novel moves towards a thrilling denouement. Readers will surely find Gabriel to be one of the most fascinating, colorful, and intrepid characters in recent espionage fiction, and I dearly hope that he will return in further iterations of “The Snake Eater Chronicles.”
Overall, James Stejskal has written an enjoyable and at times chilling, espionage novel, which enthralled me and brought a sense of realism to the aftermath of Russia’s cruel war with Ukraine, which highlights the many American heroes of the intelligence community who are today, as always, quietly serving at the tip of the spear, and helping to keep America and democracy safe.
Dead Hand earns a solid four out of four trench coats
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