Moren, Dan. The Bayern Agenda. Galactic Cold War No. 1. Angry Robot, 2019.
In a good spy story, there is usually an element of melancholy, because the agents often discover their own complicity in the evil they oppose. John le Carré is the master of this genre, and as several reviewers have noted, Dan Moren uses le Carré’s model to create his interstellar special-ops espionage team. If anything, the story is a bit too old school for its setting. There is an empire opposing a commonwealth, and even cold war is not an idea that fits well in a plausible interstellar future. Helicopters and other military gear also seem more near future than deep time. Even the medicine is not far from what we have now. But on a certain level, the story of the sadder-but-wiser agent still works, so the story is readable if you can suspend your disbelief. ( )