What Darkness Reveals – A Cold War Novella

In darkness, the hand guides the soul, but the heart shines the light.



Pavel keeps chasing something he can’t define. A promising KGB agent, he is torn between the life he envisioned, and the one he’s living. These dueling visions squared off decades ago, when, as boy, he had a life-altering experience while on a family outing. This event, in the murky depths of a lake outside Moscow, would come to define not just his existence, but his next incarnation.

As Pavel searches for his true identity, a cast of misfits paint a compelling truth about life on the bleaker side of the Iron Curtain. There’s Klaus, the secret policeman with a flair for the cinematic; there’s the Bohemian, a shadowy feline winning a man’s game; there’s Heidi, a diplomatic envoy who doubles as his weekend muse; and then there’s Elena.

She is the scientist, fearing for her life and that of her family, who lives in a reality Pavel no longer accepts.

Pavel’s aspirations lead him into the dangerous underground of crumbling societies, where lives are traded, souls are erased and fear rules the night. It’s a space where he cannot survive. 

Award-winning author Matthew Fults delivers a novella that slithers down a black hole of self-loathing cloaked in a morally sound protagonist. It is here, at the crossroads of confusion and apathy, where Pavel contemplates the ultimate sacrifice for a second chance at the life he always wanted.