American diplomat Nicholas Rosa receives a cryptic note from his mother hinting at a dark union between the Russian church and state minutes before she’s murdered in a Washington suburb. Her killers will do anything to keep that secret from spreading, making Nicholas an inconvenient problem in need of a quick resolution.

Nicholas connects a prophecy of treachery revealed to a trio of Portuguese peasant children a hundred years earlier to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II and the execution of Poland’s president on Russian soil. Shadowy figures engage Asal, a fiery Uzbek with a violent past and a talent for disappearing, to handle him. She develops a begrudging respect for Nicholas, but will she defy her handlers and her own instinct to help him?

An electrifying story of ambition and betrayal, THE UZBEK GIRL exposes the raw nerves of a Cold War that refuses to end and Russian ambition that extends well beyond its borders.