The Moldavian Gambit follows US intelligence officers, Mossad agents, and a KGB Investigator who are all trying to locate a stolen portable nuclear weapon before a clear conflict is started. Some events in the book were chillingly similar to real-life events. Did you take any inspiration from real life when developing this book?

My goal was to write a novel that would be seen as truly authentic by national security professionals and avid readers alike. That meant making the story accurate and realistic in all of its details:  locations, historical events, intelligence operations, military hardware, etc. The story was also inspired by actual events – the loss of control of a Soviet nuclear weapons storage facility in Azerbaijan in 1990, an attempted coup in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991, and uprisings by secessionist forces in the pro-Soviet Moldavian breakaway region of Transnistria in the late-1980’s and early-90’s. The blurred line between fact and fiction was key to creating the high level of tension and suspense that makes the “what if” scenario of the plotline feel like it actually could happen!

Your book has some very interesting characters that have their character flaws but are still likable. How do you go about creating characters for your story?

There are more than 20 important characters in the book, but four principal protagonists.  Each of these are composites of people I have known and worked with professionally, in my work as a diligence advisor to buyers and sellers of companies active in the aerospace, defense and government markets.  And you’re correct in saying that their flaws are what make each primary character in the book more interesting.

Dov Ma’alat, a veteran senior Israeli intelligence officer, grapples with his relevance in early retirement as he is thrust into what is arguably the most important mission of his long career. He relies on instinct, intuition and decades of practiced tradecraft to reach conclusions about the conspiracy surrounding the nuclear theft that are severely tested, only to play a pivotal role as the crisis reaches its climax.

Lt. Col. Sergei Rostov, a young KGB investigator reluctantly comes to believe that the KGB itself is somehow involved in the theft of the Soviet nuclear device. Torn between his loyalty to the Soviet state security apparatus, the apparent evidence before him, and his cynicism toward the crumbling Soviet state, he confides his suspicions to his father, a retired KGB brigadier-general, but then comes to regret his decision. Events lead Rostov to provide critical information to the team hunting for the weapon, nearly at the cost of his own life.

Then there is Dr. Peter Grantham, the brilliant and earnest nuclear physicist who leads the US Nuclear Emergency Search Team.  Grantham is less complicated – and less jaded – than the others, a bit of a Boy Scout, really, whose sense of mission against insurmountable odds – and whose out-of-the-box thinking – ultimately prove indispensable.

The fourth primary character is Maria Colline, a poised, intelligent and seductive Soviet sleeper agent who has survived and prospered for more than two decades in the rarefied air of diplomatic receptions, fashion shows, diamond trading, and money-laundering.  Hiding in plain sight as she waited for the mission that has finally arrived.

The many secondary characters that surround these four also have their own histories, foibles and idiosyncrasies, which hopefully increases the reader’s sense of believability around the story.

 Did you find anything in your research of this story that surprised you?

A number of factual historical events are important to the story, most of which I was unaware of before I began to write The Moldavian Gambit.  Some concerned the tragic history of Transnistria, the eastern region of Soviet Moldovia where the stolen nuclear weapon is stored and where an uprising occurs by pro-Soviet secessionists that figures importantly in the theft.  But the most surprising insights concerned details surrounding the nuclear weapon itself – details that I won’t share here in order to avoid disclosing too much about how the plot unfolds.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

There won’t be a sequel to The Moldavian Gambit, as the story happened nearly 35 years ago.  But you can expect other ‘Gambits’: hyper-realistic thrillers that take place in a variety of unexpected exotic locales, with geopolitical implications that turn on deceptions or conspiracies that reveal themselves only gradually. The first of those is in progress. I can say that it is much more current, but equally authentic in its treatment of places, events, military and intelligence technology, etc.  And the implications for the world are equally threatening, so stay tuned!

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