"Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy"

Paul Vidich's new novel is Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy. His previous novel, The Mercenary, was selected by CrimeReads as one of the top 10 espionage novels of 2021. His debut novel, An Honorable Man, was selected by Publishers Weekly as a Top 10 Mystery and Thriller in 2016. It was followed by The Good Assassin. His third novel, The Coldest Warrior, was widely praised in England and America, earning strong reviews from The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. It was shortlisted for the UK’s Staunch Prize and chosen as a Notable Selection of 2020 by CrimeReads.

Vidich applied the Page 69 Test to Beirut Station and reported the following:

Page 69 of Beirut Station brings together the two Mossad agents and their CIA counterparts in a makeshift mobile headquarters. The narrator is Analise, looks at the others. “Two old spies, she thought. A Cold Warrior and a Zionist, both in their sixties, which a long habit of lying courteously to each other, which bound them together and kept them at a polite distance – the most intimate of adversaries.” The older Mossad agent looks at Analise and says basically, “do you have the new plans?”

The Page 69 Test provides a strong clue about what the novel is about. Four spies convene together in a van in Beirut, and one asks the other, ‘have you got the new plans?’ The characters are spies, so the reader can assume that they are engaged in skullduggery, and the mention of ‘new plans’ suggests a mission that will be under taken. The page builds suspense about the nature of the operation: what is being planned? Who is the target? What is at stake?

Beirut Station is about a joint mission by the CIA and Mossad to assassinate a a reclusive Hezbollah terrorist who was responsible for the murder of William Buckley, the Beirut Station Chief killed in 1985. Analise Assad is a non-official cover officer tasked with getting close to the terrorist’s grandchild in order to uncover the terrorist's whereabouts. The story takes place in the midst of the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. Inside the war story, there is love story. It’s also a story about the cycle of revenge in the Middle East.

Visit Paul Vidich's website.

Q&A with Paul Vidich.

My Book, The Movie: The Mercenary.

The Page 69 Test: The Mercenary.

The Page 69 Test: The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich.

My Book, The Movie: Beirut Station.

--Marshal Zeringue