Author Brad Buchanan has taken his lifelong passion for chess and transformed it into a sweeping Cold War thriller. Spy’s Mate, set for release on October 14, 2025, is not just a story about the game but a gripping tale of psychological endurance, political manipulation, and personal redemption.
Buchanan’s connection to chess is deeply personal. Taught the game by his mother as a boy, he found in its structure a way to stay mentally grounded during his battle with T-cell lymphoma, a life-threatening cancer. After his mother’s passing in 2021, chess became a touchstone once again, inspiring him to create a novel that merges strategy with storytelling and pays homage to the game’s mythic resonance in his own life.
At the heart of Spy’s Mate is Yasha, a gifted Armenian chess prodigy. His life takes a dramatic turn when his ailing mother is hospitalized, leading him to live with an uncle in Armenia. There, he immerses himself in the chess world and makes a fateful promise: to become World Champion before his mother’s death. His pursuit of greatness becomes both a personal quest and a battleground for larger forces at play.
The novel follows Yasha through humiliation and triumph, mentorship under a stern coach, and manipulation by a KGB operative who falsely claims paternal ties. His rise to grandmaster status catapults him into the global spotlight, but his forced complicity in throwing a match results in tragedy and a haunting need for redemption.
From clandestine alliances with a Kazakh grandmaster connected to the Mossad to navigating political upheaval and ethnic violence in the Soviet Union, Yasha’s journey intertwines personal sacrifice with the relentless pressure of Cold War politics. Ultimately, the novel builds toward a climactic showdown on the chessboard — a tense, seesaw battle that cements Yasha as World Champion. But victory comes with a painful choice: to defect and protect himself or risk everything by returning to his dying mother’s side in Moscow.
For Buchanan, the novel represents more than a spy thriller. It is a testament to resilience, memory, and the enduring lessons of the game. “It is a hero’s journey that only chess can offer,” he notes.
Spy’s Mate: A Novel will be published by Thinkers Publishing and is available now for preorder on Amazon.