Mitchell’s book explores in detail the strategy for protecting a US embassy in a foreign country. You cannot hire Russian Contractors because their primary mission would be to put listening devices all over the building.

Steel needs to be purchased for the building, however, in the case of the U.S. Embassy the structure will be eight floors above ground. US import cost is prohibitive. Therefore, locally sourced steel which met the building specifications was the answer.

Meanwhile, Mother Russia is trying to figure out how to put listening devices into the steel during fabrication. The Americans tasked with maintaining the integrity of the building continually examined the beams and rejected those with listening devices.

A cat and mouse game was played throughout the construction period. Some of the devices were obviously detected and removed. But misinformation is as important as no information against a foreign power.

Russia and her satellites have many very beautiful ladies they involve in information gathering. The ladies were required to get to know the contractors. The result is a very interesting mix of romance and intrigue. (Some of the ladies married the guys and moved to the U.S.) 4.5 stars - CE Williams

I’d heard of the Russians bugging the US embassy. This novel sounded interesting, written by someone who had been there. The reality is a book of devious Russians analyzing how to compromise Americans. The American workers are intent on finding beautiful Russian women to fool around with. It was hard to read, much less enjoy.

ENGAGING SPY NOVEL WITH A TWISTING PLOT KEPT ME GLUED TO THIS BOOK!!! Tonight I "stayed in" (as if we ever "go out" anymore in the age of Corona!) and read this well-written, award winning, fast-paced tale of intrigue and international espionage of the highest order, written with the ring of detail gained from personal experience by Mr. Mitchell who actually DID help build the Moscow Embassy! Highly recommend. The small touches, such as the detail of a given cafe in Moscow or the historical vignettes related to the dramatic history of the rise and fall of the USSR bring the story to life and teach the reader new details of various periods in history , while the story never drags or gets bogged down. Looking forward to the sequel! Engaging spy novel with a twisting plot kept me glued to this book! Nice character buildup and formatted well make for an easy read.

3/5 Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I honestly thought that this was going to be a nonfiction account of the building of the American embassy in Moscow, so I was a little confused at the beginning with the personal interactions between the characters. The writing style is caught somewhere between being a work of fiction and an account of the actual goings on around the reconstruction of the embassy. Sometimes there is a staccato listing of events and the personnel involved and at other times, it reads like a novel with character relations and conversations.

This story starts after the Americans found that the first try at building an embassy in Moscow had been compromised with listening devices embedded in the concrete slabs. The plan was then made to demolish many of the upper floors and rebuild them with great care being taken for security. The story follows the Project Engineer and different American managers through the events surrounding this reconstruction and the espionage and counter-espionage that occurred during it.

The story outlines how the Russians did background checks on all the American workers that arrived and found weak character flaws that they could exploit. Often it was sexual preferences that could be embarrassing; or other blackmail issues that could be upsetting. The workers were supposed to report all interactions with Russians to the System Security Manager. Some did, some did not; and this played out through the book.

Both the building and the espionage stories were interesting, but the relationship between the Project Engineer and his Russian honey was a little juvenile with her always having sauce on her face while eating the same things, and them constantly spanking each other. A few more details on the Americans and the Russians trying to one up each other would have made this story more remarkable.

I have to say, this book needed a much better editor. The plot line is very good, and you can tell the author truly knows the in and outs of embassy construction. Its just the dialog and the story is so stunted, and badly written. This looks like a first draft from a first time author. Which is a shame, because as I previously mentioned, the story line was very intriguing, the execution of that story line was awful. I enjoyed thinking about how good this would have been if the plot was given to a more established author to flush out.

Moscow Embassy by Thomas J. Mitchell : This book is not what I expected. I thought it would be a non-fictional account of the re-building of the US Embassy in Moscow. The embassy had to be rebuilt because they discovered the Soviets had buried an incredible number of listening devices into the building. As a result, the US brought their own team of contractors and supplies to rebuild the Embassy from the 5th floor upward. Instead, this book was a historical fictional account of espionage and counter-espionage that occurred during this building period.
So disappointed that it was not non-fiction but still in many ways a good read.
Mr. Mitchell knows what he is writing about as he worked on this construction project. Thus, the general design of the building, the checks and double checks for security for the construction as well as the people I take as factual.
What was frustrating but probably true is still the Soviets are so good at finding weak points in the people coming from the US who they can turn mainly due to honeypots. Maybe this should not be shocking giving who would volunteer to work in Moscow even if the money is good. But fact and fiction seem to hold this is true that middle-age guys find it difficult that young, beautiful Russian woman can’t get enough sex from these lonely men.
Although the men are required to report any interaction with Russian citizens not all do. The story is about two men who do report sexual encounters and how the US Intelligence uses this information to feed disinformation to the Soviets listening into discussions inside the “secure” room within the rebuilt embassy.
The story is fine except it is difficult to keep a story going where these lonely souls entertain their Russian dolls in the same restaurants where they drink and eat the same food every time.
It is not a bad book but I think there are many espionage books that handle this type of spy vs. spy much better. One positive note, the photographs in the book are excellent and help to bring the story to life.

Moscow Embassy
The Angara Club
by Thomas J. Mitchell

The story of how Russian security services tried to bug the new US embassy in Moscow itself was interesting and the plot well developed, however the narrative often went far too away from the main story with inconsequetial details that became separate lessons in history, geography, politics, culture and cuisine. For example, at one point we taken on vacation with the main character and his girlfriend to the Far East with details that added nothing to the plot. Without those excursions away from the main story it could have been very good.