Moscow at Midnight

A private contractor hires former CIA agent Max Rushmore, the hero of journalist McGrane’s uneven first novel, to travel to Moscow, where he’s to verify the death eight months earlier of Sonja Ostranova, a nuclear disarmament inspector. When Max comes across hints that Sonja is still alive, he sets out to find her. Meanwhile, Sonja, having swapped identities with a convenient corpse, is searching for a deep secret involving high-level radioactive waste and, somehow, diamonds. Max moves about Russia, from city to nuclear waste site to diamond mine, with side trips to Berlin, Paris, and Venice, and serendipitously meets just the people who can help him. The diverse cast includes taxi drivers, old peasant women, and international spies, but characters come on stage and off seemingly at random. McGrane is good at giving the reader a sense of sharing inside information, but the story scurries from place to place with spritely abandon and an occasional leap into fantasy, besides at times being difficult to follow. McGrane shows enough talent for readers to hope for better next time. (May)