Spy story

Spies among us, a real life spy story

Reality and fiction collide in a new World War II spy thriller that parallels the present-day American spy story headlined in national news and the recent indictment of 13 Russian operatives.

Partially set in Saratoga Springs, “New York Station” was inspired by very real events, said local author Lawrence Dudley, who details the German efforts to rig the 1940 election, during a book release and reading at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls on Wednesday night.

In Dudley’s tale, originally penned nearly two decades ago, fictional M-16 agent Roy Hawkins discovers a Nazi plot to rig the presidential election in 1940.

“I think the reason ‘New York Station’ is getting so much attention now is all the questions that are being raised about the 2016 election,” Dudley said. “The Russian intervention — it’s like every day. I pick up the paper and there seems to be a new story that relates to this whole thing. (It’s) an astonishing saga that’s unfolding before our eyes, or rather unraveling before our eyes.”

The current political climate has given his novel “a relevancy and timeliness you couldn’t plan if you tried,” Dudley said.