Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

*A Telegraph Book of the Year* *Shortlisted for the Parliamentary Book Awards* An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war - from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War - and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin apparently lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime - and Russia itself - at risk of destruction. Why? Drawing on over 25 years' experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky. Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war's causes but how the first six months unfolded. With its panoramic view, Overreach is an authoritative, unmissable record of a conflict that shocked Europe to its core.

History

Matthews, Owen

Military

Mudlark

Adam Higgs is a loser, and he's not okay with it.
But starting as a junior in a new high school seems like exactly the right time to change things. He brainstorms with his best friend, Brian: What will it take for him to take over Nixon Collegiate? Adam searches for the A-listers' weak spot and strikes gold when he gets queen bee Sara Bryant to pay him for doing her physics homework. One part nerd, two parts badass, Adam ditches his legit job and turns to full-time cheating. His clients? All the Nixon Collegiate gods and goddesses.
But soon his homework business becomes a booze business, which becomes a fake ID business. Adam's popularity soars as he unlocks high school achievements left and right, from his first kiss to his first rebound hookup. But something else is haunting him—a dark memory from his past, driving him to keep climbing. What is it? And will he go too far?
How to Win at High School's honest picture of high school hierarchy combines with an over-the-top, adrenaline-charged story line, and Adam's rocket ride to the top of the social order (and his subsequent flameout) is by turns bawdy and sweetly emotional.

How to Win at High School

Teen & Young Adult

Literature & Fiction

HarperTeen

5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 
Eric Connelly is crumbling under the weight of his dad’s expectations. He can’t seem to live up to the “Connelly Man” standards—but when he meets the mysterious, free-spirited Jordan Grant, his dad’s rules seem so much less important than they used to.
Jordan and Eric—now “E”—join up with two of the most popular girls in school to combat their rich-kid boredom. But as Jordan seduces E further, the group starts to kill time in more nefarious ways. It’s Jordan who escalates the pack’s dares from mostly harmless jaunts like joyrides in boosted cars and Bling Ring–style luxury shoplifting sprees into more violent activities. Eric is intoxicated . . . swept up in the pack’s activities, even as Paige and Haley start to have reservations about what they’ve been doing. When Jordan starts talking bigger—what’s a little bomb building between friends?—E must decide if he’s just too far down the rabbit hole to back out.
From the author of How to Win at High School comes a wicked, irreverent story of rich kids gone amok that will leave readers at the edge of their seats.

The Fixes: A Novel

"Black Sun is fascinating and has fearsome authenticity." --Frederick Forsyth, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Thrilling and suspenseful." --Simon Sebeag Montefiore, New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs "To call the novel chilling is an understatement." --Booklist (starred review) It is the dawn of the 1960s. In order to investigate the gruesome death of a brilliant young physicist, KGB officer Major Alexander Vasin must leave Moscow for Arzamas-16, a top-secret research city that does not appear on any map. There he comes up against the brightest, most cutthroat brain trust in Russia who, on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev himself, are building a nuclear weapon with 3,800 times the destructive potential of the Hiroshima bomb. RDS-220 is a project of such vital national importance that, unlike everyone else in the Soviet Union, the scientists of Arzamas-16 are free to think and act, live and love as they wish...as long as they complete the project and prove to their capitalist enemies that the USSR now commands the heights of nuclear supremacy. With intricately plotted machinations, secrets and surveillance, corrupt politicos and puppet masters in the Politburo, and one devastating weapon, Owen Matthews has crafted a timely, terrific, and fast-paced thriller set at the height--and in the heart--of Soviet power.

Black Sun: A Novel

Genre Fiction

DOUBLEDAY

Product Description 
An electrifying new thriller set during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, seen from a bone-chilling vantage point: somewhere off the Florida coastline, trapped aboard the claustrophobic confines of an isolated Soviet submarine with open orders to fire its nuclear payload.\nThe year is 1962, and KGB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vasin is chasing a white elephant: the long-rumored existence of an American spy embedded at the highest echelon of Soviet power. In a wild-goose chase that has Vasin engaged in high-stakes espionage against a rival State agency, he first hears whispers of an ominous top-secret undertaking: Operation Anadyr.\nAs tensions flare between Nikita Khrushchev and President Kennedy over Russian missiles hidden in Cuba, four Soviet submarines are ordered to make a covert run at the American blockade in the Caribbean--each sub carrying tactical ballistic missiles armed with thermonuclear warheads.\nCritically acclaimed novelist Owen Matthews has crafted an incredibly taut thriller around one of the most treacherous moments in modern history, where the fate of the world rested on the itchy trigger finger of one lone Soviet naval officer, 100-meters under the sea, out of all contact with his commanders. 
 Review 
Praise for Red TraitorNamed one of the Best Thrillers of 2021 by the Financial Times 
“Basing both his plotlines on actual events and real people, Matthews generates remarkable tension in this perfectly executed two-pronged thriller, with the submarine story proving especially dramatic, evoking both T 
he Hunt for Red October and the high-tension cat-and-mouse game portrayed in the classic WWII submarine film 
The Enemy Below.” 
Booklist, *starred review*“Told primarily from the Russian perspective, this gripping thriller from Matthews ( 
Black Sun) focuses on the often overlooked role of Soviet submarines, all equipped with nuclear missiles, that were heading to Cuba in the days leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. . .Cold War buffs will particularly enjoy the ride, though any reader who appreciates the finer points of espionage and foreign intrigue will also be well satisfied.” 
Publisher's Weekly"[A] tense, claustrophobic tale of underwater woes, set at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis." 
 CrimeReads, "Most Anticipated Books of Summer" "As KGB officer Alexander Vasin searches for an American spy, the world slides towards a potential nuclear war in this fast-paced thriller set in 1962 during the cold war. Matthews is a Russia expert and it shows, from Vasin, who is a complex, engaging protagonist, to the superb scene-setting that sweeps the reader from the Lubyanka, the KGB headquarters, to the claustrophobia on board a Soviet submarine." 
 Financial Times (UK)\n“Another page turner. . . Matthews has crafted a taut thriller using his knowledge of one of the most treacherous events in world history. This is a complex novel with many moving parts. The characters are terrific and the author keeps the reader involved through the interactions between the characters—not the geopolitical maneuvering. This reviewer highly recommends this book for anyone interested in high intrigue within real historical events.” 
The Free Lance-StarPraise for Black Sun (2019)\n“There are some authors who have gone out into the world to observe the good, the bad and the ugly. Owen Matthews is such a novelist. 
Black Sun is fascinating and has fearsome authenticity.” 
Frederick Forsyth, #1 New York Times-bestselling author\n“This thrilling and suspenseful and original thriller of murder and power is a compelling voyage into the darkest secret city of the soviet nuclear project by an expert on all of Russian life.” 
Simon Sebag Montefiore, New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs and Stalin\n"To call the novel 
chilling is an understatement. . .If you think you already know about the Soviet drive for world dominance via nuclear supremacy and the extent to which it was enforced by b

Red Traitor: A Novel

A page-turning thriller about two competing KGB operatives on a race across Russia and against time to uncover the devastating truth behind the assassination of JFK. 1963. In a desolate Russian penal colony, the radio blares the news of President Kennedy's death. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vasin's new post as director of a gulag camp in the middle of a frozen tundra is far from a promotion. This is where disgraced agents, like Vasin, are sent to disappear and die quietly. But when tensions in the camp mount and a violent revolt breaks out, Vasin finds himself on the run with a mysterious prisoner holding the most dangerous secret in the world: who ordered the murder of President Kennedy. In a breathless chase that leads them throughout the Soviet Union, from the barren Siberian wastelands, to the stunning halls of the Catherine Palace, and into the gritty streets of Leningrad and Moscow, Vasin must stay one step ahead of the deadliest spy and police organizations in the world, and keep the most wanted man in Russia alive. The journey will push Vasin's loyalty, morality, and patriotism to the limit, until he faces the ultimate choice: fall in line, or die fighting the system. With masterly storytelling that weaves together a moment of explosive history with the cutthroat machinations of Soviet politics, Owen Matthews's White Fox captures the paradigm-shifting assassination from a unique Soviet point of view. This is a page-turning thriller across Russia, where characters facing impossible odds are forced to decide among truth, justice, and all-out war.

White Fox: A Novel (The Black Sun Trilogy)

The "kind of thriller you want to savor as you turn the pages" (New York Journal of Books), set at the height—and in the heart—of Soviet power, with intricately plotted machinations, secrets and surveillance, corrupt politicos and puppet masters in the Politburo, and one devastating weapon.\nIt is the dawn of the 1960s. In order to investigate the gruesome death of a brilliant young physicist, KGB officer Major Alexander Vasin must leave Moscow for Arzamas-16, a top secret research city that does not appear on any map.\nThere he comes up against the brightest, most cutthroat brain trust in Russia who, on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev himself, are building a nuclear weapon with 3,800 times the destructive potential of the Hiroshima bomb. RDS-220 is a project of such vital national importance that, unlike everyone else in the Soviet Union, the scientists of Arzamas-16 are free to think and act, live and love as they wish, so long as they complete the project and prove to their capitalist enemies that the USSR now commands the heights of nuclear supremacy.

Black Sun: A Novel Based on an Incredible True Story (The Black Sun Trilogy)

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

A transcendent history/memoir of one family’s always passionate, sometimes tragic connection to Russia.On a midsummer day in 1937, a black car pulled up to a house in Chernigov, in the heart of the Ukraine. Boris Bibikov—Owen Matthews’s grandfather—kissed his wife and two young daughters good-bye and disappeared inside the car. His family never saw him again. His wife would soon vanish as well, leaving Lyudmila and Lenina alone to drift across the vast Russian landscape during World War II. Separated as the Germans advanced in 1941, they were miraculously reunited against all odds at the war’s end. Some twenty-five years later, in the early 1960s, Mervyn Matthews—Owen’s father—followed a lifelong passion for Russia and moved to Moscow to work for the British embassy. He fell in and out with the KGB, and despite having fallen in love with Lyudmila, he was summarily deported. For the next six years, Mervyn worked day and night to get Lyudmila out of Russia, and when he finally succeeded, they married. Decades on from these events, Owen Matthews—then a young journalist himself in Russia—came upon his grandfather’s KGB file recording his “progress from life to death at the hands of Stalin’s secret police.” Stimulated by its revelations, he has pieced together the tangled and dramatic threads of his family’s past and present, making sense of the magnetic pull that has drawn him back to his mother’s homeland. Stalin’s Children is an indelible portrait of Russia over seven decades and an unforgettable memoir about how we struggle to define ourselves in opposition to our ancestry only to find ourselves aligning with it.“I came to Russia to get away from my parents,” writes Matthews. “Instead I found them there, though for a long time I didn’t know it or refused to see it. This is a story about Russia and my family, about a place which made us and freed us and inspired us and very nearly broke us. And it’s ultimately a story about escape, about how we all escaped from Russia, even though all of us—even my father, a Welshman, who has no Russian blood, even me, who grew up in England—still carry something of Russia inside ourselves, infecting our blood like a fever.”

Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival

Biographies & Memoirs

Walker Co

A transcendent history/memoir of one family's always passionate, sometimes tragic connection to Russia.
On a midsummer day in 1937, a black car pulled up to a house in Chernigov, in the heart of the Ukraine. Boris Bibikov―Owen Matthews's grandfather―kissed his wife and two young daughters good-bye and disappeared inside the car. His family never saw him again. His wife would soon vanish as well, leaving Lyudmila and Lenina alone to drift across the vast Russian landscape during World War II. Separated as the Germans advanced in 1941, they were miraculously reunited against all odds at the war's end. 
Some twenty-five years later, in the early 1960s, Mervyn Matthews―Owen's father―followed a lifelong passion for Russia and moved to Moscow to work for the British embassy. He fell in and out with the KGB, and despite having fallen in love with Lyudmila, he was summarily deported. For the next six years, Mervyn worked day and night to get Lyudmila out of Russia, and when he finally succeeded, they married. 
Decades on from these events, Owen Matthews―then a young journalist himself in Russia―came upon his grandfather's KGB file recording his "progress from life to death at the hands of Stalin's secret police." Stimulated by its revelations, he has pieced together the tangled and dramatic threads of his family's past and present, making sense of the magnetic pull that has drawn him back to his mother's homeland. Stalin's Children is an indelible portrait of Russia over seven decades and an unforgettable memoir about how we struggle to define ourselves in opposition to our ancestry only to find ourselves aligning with it.
"I came to Russia to get away from my parents," writes Matthews. "Instead I found them there, though for a long time I didn't know it or refused to see it. This is a story about Russia and my family, about a place which made us and freed us and inspired us and very nearly broke us. And it's ultimately a story about escape, about how we all escaped from Russia, even though all of us―even my father, a Welshman, who has no Russian blood, even me, who grew up in England―still carry something of Russia inside ourselves, infecting our blood like a fever."

Americas

Walker Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Matthews, Owen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Matthews, Owen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Matthews, Owen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

How to Win at High School

How to Win at High School

The Fixes: A Novel

Black Sun: A Novel

Red Traitor: A Novel

White Fox: A Novel (The Black Sun Trilogy)

Black Sun: A Novel Based on an Incredible True Story (The Black Sun Trilogy)

Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival

Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival