The Unpossessed City — Jon Fasman

A SMALL-TIME GAMBLER COLLIDES WITH RUSSIA'S MOST DANGEROUS POWER PLAYERS IN A GAME THAT COULD COST HIM HIS LIFE

Jim Vilatzer was going nowhere--working in his parents' Maryland restaurant, sleeping in his childhood bedroom--until gambling debts forced him to go somewhere far away, and fast. Using his Russian language skills, he manages to find a job in Moscow interviewing survivors of the Gulag. Jim's taste for gambling is satisfied merely by living in a city that teems with risk and promise, and he scores more than enough interviews to acquire job security.

But his apparent success has earned him unwanted attention from the CIA and Russia's Interior Ministry--two interested parties whose relentless pursuit forces him to flee into Russia's lawless border country armed only with the very secrets that could get him killed.