Phantom Orbit

December 1, 2023

In his return to thrillers, after 2020's The Paladin, best-selling Ignatius combines space warfare and an unsolved puzzle in the writings of 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler. Russian Ivan Volkov discovered Kepler's clues and has been secretly working on them for years, until he contacts the CIA with a cryptic invitation. Prepub Alert.

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March 1, 2024
Great powers jockey for dominance in space. Three unusually smart people play key roles in this cerebral, well-researched thriller. It's relatively low-key, with none of the blood spatter and 12-letter profanities so common in the genre. In the 1990s, Russian Ivan Volkov studies aerospace engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he learns from renowned professor Cao Lin and meets American grad student Edith Ryan. Volkov and Ryan (Psst! She's CIA) become friends but not lovers, and they go their separate ways. Back home in Russia, Volkov, the most interesting of the main characters, is asked if he trusts his "new Chinese friends." "I am a Russian," he replies. "I don't trust anyone." His money-loving wife leaves him and their young son while he struggles to find a job that pays enough. "Don't take Dimitry," he begs her. "I don't want Dimitry," she tells him. "He reminds me of you." Ouch. But he loves his son and raises him well. He also loves Russia, but he doesn't love its corruption. Three decades later, the specter of war looms in space, with hints of vulnerabilities in the GPS system. The U.S. has dominated space for so long that Cao Lin believes it's become complacent and can't see its vulnerabilities. While much of our daily lives depends on GPS's precision in commercial air and highway travel, it's critical to Ukraine for pinpointing Russian targets on the battlefield. Thousands of miles up in space, one satellite might be able to reposition itself close to another country's satellite and reprogram or disable it. This oversimplifies the threat described in detail in the novel, but that's the drift. China, Russia, and the U.S. fear and mistrust each other, and they can cause huge problems on earth by dominating space with "killer satellites." Volkov is asked if he can fix Russia's satellite system, which is too "sloppy" and "imprecise." "You need better clocks," he replies, and the author does a good job explaining why. Ryan, Volkov, and Cao are all honorable characters with their own trajectories that reconnect in surprising fashion. Readers just might root for all three. A space yarn filled with tension and excitement.

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Starred review from April 15, 2024
Journalist and novelist Ignatius (The Paladin) delivers an engrossing, character-driven spy thriller about space warfare. In 1995, 24-year-old Russian scientist Ivan Volkov accepts a scholarship in astronomy at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. After solving a notoriously tricky problem proposed by a 17th-century astronomer, Ivan is taken under the wing of professor Cao Lin, who convinces him to study satellites. During Ivan’s schooling, he meets American student Edith Ryan, with whom he shares a brief romance. He then returns to Moscow, marries, fathers a son who grows up to become a Russian prosecutor, and draws on his research with professor Lin to become a major figure in Russia’s satellite warfare program. Decades later, Ivan reconnects with Edith—now a CIA analyst—to warn the U.S. of dangerous tactics being utilized by Russian forces that could pose a threat to the human race, which he unwittingly helped develop. Ignatius alternates chapters between Ivan, professor Lin, Edith, and Ivan’s son, Dmitry, patiently knitting together their storylines until the high-stakes espionage plot achieves liftoff. This is contemporary cloak-and-dagger intrigue at its finest.