On a February Friday in a remote, off-the-grid house set in front of the vast Big Rocks Wilderness in Lincoln County, Nevada, sheriff’s deputies, responding to a welfare check request, discover the horrifically tortured corpse of retired FBI special agent Ralph Atterbury. No property is missing and there’s no sign of forced entry suggesting Atterbury had let the killer into the house. It’s clear from both the manner of death and condition of the house that the killer was searching for something. Lincoln County Sheriff Porter Beck launches an investigation.

After notifying the FBI field office in Las Vegas of the murder, Sana Locke arrives in Beck’s office, identifying herself as an FBI special agent, and the investigation takes an unexpected turn. Sheriff Beck learns the motive behind Atterbury’s death stretches back to the Cold War and the atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds back in the 1950s. Beck, his deputies, and Locke team up to search for Atterbury’s killer. The sheriff learns from her they are looking for Russian intelligence officers who will continue killing until they find what they are searching for, a Russian spy from the fifties who betrayed the Soviet Union and disappeared in the United States. Along the way, Beck, a former Army intelligence officer, learns that there is more to Sana Locke than meets the eye and discovers something completely unexpected about his own past.

Bruce Borgos’ gripping mixed genre mystery and espionage thriller centers on the search for a former Russian intelligence officer who spied on the American nuclear program in the 1950s and then betrayed the Soviet Union and disappeared. Now both American and Russian intelligence are searching for him and the Russians will kill as many people as they have to in order to find their traitorous comrade first.

This mixed genre novel blends mystery and thriller genres themes of betrayal, government corruption, and closely held secrets in an imaginative plot that maintains the reader’s interest and presents a compelling set of characters and suspects. The Bitter Past will satisfy both crime and espionage thriller seasoned readers, following a standard police procedural narrative that keeps readers guessing until the final chapter. What is initially a gruesome one-off murder soon leads to more killings, and the pacing and tension remain at a high level throughout the entire story as a rural sheriff’s department and a federal agent pursue Russian intelligence assassins in a remote part of Nevada.

The Bitter Past consists of many notable secondary characters to keep the story interesting—in particular, Porter Beck, his father Joe Beck, sister Brinley, and Sana Locke, all of whom hold significant presences in the story.

A strong setting anchors the novel—the enormous but sparsely populated Lincoln County, Nevada near the infamous secret federal government Area 51 site. A county about the size of Maryland with only a 12-person sheriff’s department to maintain law and order is filled with eccentric and interesting characters and long-held secrets. Largely character-driven with a tight plot, Borgos does well in capturing the isolated county that contributes to a sense of foreboding that puts the reader in mind of many Australian rural crime novels. Readers will find the conclusion particularly satisfying.

I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for consideration of a review. This review represents my honest opinions.

Book rating: ★★★★