EYES OF DECEIT

Espionage is easy. Living with it isn’t.

The Company named it Operation Ajax. MI6 labeled it Boot. History would call it a coup.

Walker calls it the beginning of the end.

1953. The Company is orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s elected leader—an operation cloaked in propaganda and alliances. In Rome, Walker is stationed with Leslie, former M16 and now Company agent, and tasked to coordinate efforts between the US and UK. But when resources on the ground become a liability, Walker is forced to make a difficult decision—one that threatens to unravel what’s left of his conscience.

As the coup’s first attempt crumbles and Washington grows desperate, old loyalties shift. Allen Dulles wants results. Kim Roosevelt wants glory. Darbyshire feels left out. And Walker begins to suspect he’s not there to help win the Cold War, but to prove he can stomach it.

From Missouri to Rome to the Catskills to Tehran, Eyes of Deceit explores postwar American idealism—and the spies who find themselves too loyal, too late, to walk away clean.

For readers of le Carré, Furst, Kanon, and Vidich, this is espionage at its most personal—and most perilous.

. . .

“A remarkable, fly-on-the-wall story of Cold War realpolitik, Gabriel Valjan’s Eyes of Deceit careens from Rockefeller Center to a Catskill resort to Rome and Tehran, giving readers a front-row seat to the plotting of the 1953 CIA and MI6 overthrow of the Iranian government. With noteworthy cameos from the famous, the powerful, and the ruthless, Eyes of Deceit is intelligent, high-stakes intrigue at its best.”

~ James W. Ziskin, Author of the Anthony, Barry,

and Macavity award-winning Ellie Stone Mysteries

“The burdens of history and secrecy weigh heavily, gracing this excellent historical espionage novel with a gritty, nuanced, and ominous sensibility where betrayal is always possible. Even that of your own soul.”

~ James R. Benn, author of the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series