November Echo — James Houston Turner

Every spy has a beginning, and for Colonel Aleksandr Talanov of the KGB, that moment occurs one summery night in 1985 on the Costa del Sol, at the height of Cold War tensions between the Americans and Soviets.As a signatory to the Biological Weapons Treaty of 1972, the United States had already destroyed its stockpiles of weaponized pathogens. The Soviets, however, responded differently to the signing of that treaty. They created a network of forty-seven top-secret production facilities spread across Russia. Called Biopreparat, it was the largest biological weapons initiative in the history of mankind. And the West had no idea of its existence.So when a scientist from the Sverdlovsk weaponized anthrax facility decides to defect, Talanov has the assigned task of bringing him back before he can share Russia's horrific secret with the world.Talanov tracks down the scientist and his family in Spain. But the scientist and his family are murdered before Talanov can transport them to a waiting Russian freighter. The only survivor is the man's teenage daughter — Noya — short for Noyabŕina — in English, November — and what happens in an impulsive moment changes the course of Talanov's life by placing him in a desperate race to save Noya from the deadliest and most vicious adversary he will ever encounter: his own people, the KGB!