Kharkiv, Ukraine, 2019: Ongoing clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian activists make this city a deadly destination.

However, Matt Latham – Australian foreign correspondent and reluctant spy for ASIS (Australia’s secret service) – isn’t too picky with the work he accepts, as long as the money is right. When offered a lucrative assignment to interview a reclusive Russian billionaire in Kharkiv, he jumps at the chance. But an explosion at the club where they were to meet leaves Matt hospitalised and his interpreter, Katya Fomina, dead.

Was it just another random act of violence in this strife-torn region?

Released from hospital, Latham travels to Katya’s Ukrainian village to meet her parents and pay his last respects. There, he learns of his interpreter’s fruitless search for her missing younger sister, Nadiya, and discovers that Katya led a double life.

Picking up the threads of Katya’s investigation, Latham becomes a man on a mission. And his search for Nadiya will propel him across Europe and ever deeper into a murky world of double agents, illegal arms shipments, drug running and human trafficking.

Shadow Lives tells a tale of loss, betrayal, and revenge. Of a flawed man’s attempt to help a broken family and, in the process, set a small corner of the world to rights … Will it also help him break free of the shadows shrouding his own life?