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#twinsiefortheday – The Children’s Game by Max Karpov

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A frighteningly plausible, fast-paced thriller about a Russian cyberattack on America, involving fake news and anonymous hackers.

The CIA has learned that the Kremlin is about to launch a sophisticated propaganda operation aimed at discrediting and disrupting the United States and ultimately restoring Russia to great nation status. Intercepted intelligence suggests that the operation will hinge on a single, breaking news event in Eastern Europe, supported by a sustained campaign of disinformation and cyberattacks. Code-named the “Children’s Game”–a chess stratagem that leads to checkmate in four moves–it was probably conceived by a Russian billionaire and former FSB officer named Andrei Turov. For years Turov has been developing the infrastructure for a new kind of warfare that exploits weaknesses in western democracies and manipulates public opinion. His organization offers the Kremlin plausible deniability.

But the United States has its own secret Christopher Niles, a former CIA intelligence officer, who understands Turov’s ambitions and capabilities. It falls to him and his small team–composed of his journalist half-brother Jon, a special forces operative he would trust with his life, and Anna Carpenter, a resourceful US senator with deep roots in the intelligence community–to unravel Turov’s plot and restore truth to a world spiraling into chaos.

The Children’s Game is a frighteningly realistic, timely thriller that delves into the secret corners of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, exploring the shifting world order and the murky realm of US-Russia relations.

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Review by Brandy

I received this book for an honest review.

Espionage
The devil is in the details, and they can be so easy to miss. The beginning of this book has a lot of players
as the lies beginning to hit the news and a lot of half-truths, so you need to pay a bit of attention to who
is hinting at what to try to figure out if they really know anything.
The phrase “noise at the expense of comprehension” caught my attention and stuck with me through
the book. I feel like this quote really is the heart of the beginning of Russia’s plan, and it really strikes
true in our current media as well. So much is put out there by so many different people that it can be
hard to find the truth. It’s a little chilling how true this story could become.
This book is a clever twist of espionage, lies, twisted patriotism, half-truths told to reporters, and how
easy it is to sway public opinion. The other things this book highlights is how hard it is to get people to
believe the truth after they believe the lies, and how far people are willing to go to hide what they have
done. Once a lie goes “viral” your life could be over even when the truth comes out or you can become a
hero only to fall just as fast. Russia has become a master at helping stories go viral, and pumping
disinformation to the public, and when key people have secrets to protect it can take too long to get to
the truth.
The end of the book seems to linger just a bit, but stick with it because Russia’s master mind had one
last little lie that you don’t know about until the end. Kudos to the author for the hidden fourth move.
There is no explicit adult content, and there is a bit of violence.

MAX KARPOV is the author of THE CHILDREN’S GAME, the Amazon best-selling thriller about Russian cyber warfare, fake news, and modern espionage. The novel features former CIA officer Christopher Niles.

THE CHILDREN’S GAME “…captures perfectly the mentality of Vladimir Putin’s Russia … And on top of that, the book is near impossible to put down. A must-read.” – Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell

Karpov is a journalist and novelist who has written for The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and elsewhere.

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