Dallas novelist Kathleen Kent uses personal experience in new spy thriller

When Kathleen Kent was a protection contractor in Japanese Europe simply after the autumn of the Soviet Union, she knew Russian intelligence brokers have been following her, she tells Axios.

• Now she’s turned these experiences into a brand new novel, “Black Wolf.”

Why it issues: Kent, a bestselling creator, is a crucial a part of the burgeoning Dallas literary scene.

The massive image: As a particular mission supervisor at one of many first corporations commissioned by the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Menace Discount Program after the Berlin Wall got here down, Kent helped dismantle former Soviet army installations in Belarus and Kazakhstan.

• On the time, the previous Soviet Union had greater than 30,000 nuclear weapons.
• A part of her job included reporting any international curiosity in these nuclear weapons.

Of notice: After years of staying in former Soviet motels, Kent can inform if a mirror is definitely two-way glass.

State of play: Kent’s new novel follows Melvina Donleavy, a younger CIA agent stationed contained in the collapsing Soviet Union — a world populated by corrupt officers, the Russian Mafia, and, in her telling, a prolific serial killer based mostly on the “Butcher of Rostov.”

Actuality examine: She began writing “Black Wolf” earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine this yr, however the brand new threats of world warfare make Kent’s material extra related now than ever.

Background: After rising up in Dallas and going to school at UT Austin, Kent labored on Wall Road earlier than turning into a protection contractor.

• She moved again to North Texas a number of years in the past and began writing full time.
• Her standard first novel, “The Heretic’s Daughter,” was revealed in 2008 and is about throughout the Salem Witch Trials.

The intrigue: “Black Wolf” might be her first spy thriller. All six of her earlier novels have been historic fiction or crime dramas.

What’s subsequent: “Black Wolf” comes out in February 2023.