Muir's Gambit - (The Aiken Trilogy) by Michael Frost Beckner (Hardcover)

About the Book

Prequel to the Redford/Brad Pitt movie thriller Spy Game, The assassination of a Cold War spymaster forces two rival spies to confront the lies, betrayals and secrets between them or become the next victims of a deadly CIA conspiracy.

Book Synopsis

"A thinking man's thriller... A real adrenaline blast... I loved it!" ROBERT REDFORD, Spy Game

Tom Bishop: "You don't just trade these people like they're baseball cards! It's not a game!"

Nathan Muir: "That's exactly what it is and it's no kid's game either. This is a whole other game. And it's serious. And it's dangerous. And it's not one you want to lose."

It's 48 hours before the events of the movie classic Spy Game and Nathan Muir is about to see his world implode...

Who'd want to assassinate Charlie March? The original Cold War hero. Mentor, brother, confessor-in-chief to Nathan Muir, he's the spy who waltzed in from the cold and wrote a bestseller in the Florida sunshine.

But when a bomb on his yacht puts Charlie March on ice, and his dying words implicate Muir, the CIA dispatches hard-luck Agency lawyer Russell Aiken to force Muir's confession and bury forty years of dirty secrets. By legal means...or otherwise.

"A chilling, inspired espionage thriller." EDITOR'S PICK Publishers Weekly

• 2023 GOLD MEDAL WINNER - BEST FIRST BOOK - Independent Publishers IPPY Awards
• 2022 WINNER - SPY THRILLER OF THE YEAR - Best Thrillers Book Awards
• 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR, FINALIST - Foreword Reviews INDIES Awards

​​​​​​​The protégé Muir cast aside in favor of Tom Bishop, Aiken thirsts for payback unaware that Muir launched a different kind of game for him and Bishop long ago, and Aiken has one night to learn its rules, plays, and deadly stakes.

"A chess game...laid out in the real world of espionage." BRAD PITT, Spy Game

Buy Now and return to the world of Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop but be warned: in Spy Game "It's not how you play the game... It's how the game plays you."

Review Quotes

Praise for Muir's Gambit

"5 out of 5 stars. Michael Frost Beckner's taut spy thriller Muir's Gambit follows a CIA attorney and a legendary spy as they engage in a battle of wits... A multilayered narrative...spanning decades, piles of secrets, the men's sordid pasts, and the race toward the truth...gritty and tense..." Foreword Clarion Reviews

"Tony Mendez and I have been fans of Michael Frost Beckner's work for many years. From Spy Game, through the Aiken Trilogy of Spy Game books: Michael's writing takes you into the intricacies of the cat and mouse aspects of spying, and the choreography of working on the street in other cultures. We have always been two of his most enthusiastic readers!" Jonna Mendez, former CIA Chief of Disguise

"Michael Frost Beckner is the rarest of spy novelists, a beautiful and compelling writer who also has a mastery of tradecraft and a deep understanding of how espionage really works." Joe Weisberg, former CIA Officer and Emmy winning creator of The Americans

In a nutshell, the mythology of Nathan Muir is nothing short of epic, and nothing he says or does should be ignored. Electric from the get-go, Beckner's sequel is a supercharged fireball, a raging inferno of action and thrill." RECOMMENDED, The US Review of Books

"Muir's Gambit is part fast-paced thriller, part intricate cat-and-mouse confessional between two spies consumed by lives of betrayal and vengeance; everyone should be reading this!" Michele McPhee, best-selling author, Emmy-nominated investigative journalist, and award-winning columnist

Praise for Beckner & Spy Game:

"Michael Frost Beckner serves up a judicious blend of showy action, political intrigue, ticking-clock suspense, and intramural CIA one-upmanship for mainstream entertainment." Variety

"You can set off a million firecrackers, but if you don't have a story to tell, you have nothing but smoke... Michael Frost Beckner's electrifying script is a thinking man's thriller... A real adrenaline blast... I loved it!" Robert Redford, from Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callahan

"A chess game...laid out on the real world of espionage." Brad Pitt, Hollywood.com/Screen Slam

"It's policy versus heart... Will challenge you in ways you haven't been challenged before." Tony Scott, Director Spy Game

"Trades in the kind of shadings and moral quandaries that have been the meat and drink of Le Carré." The Boston Globe

"A taut...timely...intelligent thriller." The Washington Post

"Asks tough, unflinching questions about America's responsibility to maintain world peace-and the price we are willing to pay in order to accomplish that." The Miami Herald

"Enormously satisfying." San Francisco Chronicle

"Pretty, gritty, engrossing and fun." The Oregonian