Matt Miksa Books in Order

Matt Miksa writes thrillers shaped by espionage, science, politics, and the uneasy places where those worlds meet. Before turning to fiction, he worked as an FBI intelligence analyst, helping prevent foreign spies from stealing American secrets. That experience gave him a close view of the pressures, uncertainty, and human judgment behind national-security work.

His interest in China has also been a major part of his path. Miksa earned a graduate degree in China Studies from Columbia University and spent time living in Beijing. Those experiences inform the international settings and political tensions in his work, especially when American and Chinese interests collide.

He knows the territory he writes about.

Miksa began writing his first spy novel in 2012, on his last day as an FBI intelligence analyst. The route to publication took years. That manuscript eventually became 13 Days to Die, released in 2021, during a real global pandemic, an especially strange moment for a novel about a dangerous new virus emerging in China.

In 13 Days to Die, American intelligence officer Olen Grave enters a disease outbreak zone while posing as a journalist. He joins forces with Chinese virus hunter Dr. Zhou Weilin, and their search for the truth pulls them into a conspiracy stretching from Tibet and Beijing to Washington. The book combines medical suspense with spy work and rising international danger, keeping the focus on what happens when a public-health crisis becomes tangled with secrets and power.

His second novel, Don't Get Close, arrived in 2022 and moves the action to Chicago. FBI trainee Vera "Tag" Taggart investigates the return of the Sons of Elijah, a violent cult whose members believe they have lived many lives before. Her case leads to a psychiatrist who uses hypnotherapy to explore past-life memories, and Tag must decide what she can trust while trying to prevent another attack.

The questions get personal fast.

Across these books, Miksa is interested in people forced to make choices with incomplete information. His protagonists work under pressure, whether they are tracking an outbreak, investigating a bombing, or trying to sort fact from belief. Science, intelligence work, terrorism, and political conflict supply the stakes, but the stories also leave room for doubt, loyalty, and the cost of getting an answer wrong.

Readers looking for globe-spanning espionage can start with 13 Days to Die. Those who prefer an FBI investigation with psychological and speculative elements may want to try Don't Get Close. Miksa lives in Chicago, and his fiction continues to draw on a background that connects real-world security concerns with high-stakes suspense.