A thriller of deception, identity and the lies we choose to believe ...
In an age of fake news and relentless deception, disgraced Army officer Edward van der Velde is thrust into a shadowy intelligence operation. Willi Pochinov’s Maskirovka takes readers from the beaches and marshes Suffolk to the Black Sea, as his protagonist navigates hoaxes, coups, and shifting loyalties in a time when nothing is as it seems and every truth is contested.
Hello and Welcome to the Maskirovka website!
If you’re after a good story, you’ll likely enjoy this—just don’t believe everything you read.
Authors, actors, scammers, politicians, spies—we all make our livings by telling lies. And people believe them simply because they want to. We even pay to watch others pretend on stage. When a film makes us cry, we feel it was worth it. And for the liars—well, it’s fun.
The danger is we start believing our own lies, which only makes them feel more convincing.
In Maskirovka, Captain Edward van der Velde becomes “Dimitri” undercover. He quickly finds life is far better as wealthy Dimitri Meinditski—an oligarch’s nephew—than facing a court martial for trying to stop what he thought was the start of World War III.
I hope you enjoy Maskirovka.
What is “Maskirovka”?
Maskirovka is a Russian doctrine of deception — the art of hiding the truth in plain sight. It uses camouflage, fake news, imitation, planted evidence and carefully staged illusions to make enemies doubt what is real. In the novel, that same strategy is turned against modern Britain. Armies appear without invading, identities are fabricated, and even the protagonist begins to lose track of who he really is. When reality itself can be engineered, the question becomes simple: what – and who – can you trust?
A disgraced British officer.
A fake invasion.
A new identity he starts to enjoy.
Maskirovka is a contemporary political thriller set in a world where truth itself has become a weapon.
When disgraced British Army officer Captain Edward van der Velde deploys his platoon without orders to stop what he believes is a Russian invasion, he faces court-martial and ruin. Offered one last chance to redeem himself, he vanishes into the shadows of British Intelligence under a new identity — Dimitri Meinditski, the charming nephew of a powerful oligarch.
From the windswept coast of Suffolk to the intrigue of London and the treacherous waters of the Black Sea, Edward is drawn into a labyrinth of coups, hoaxes and shifting loyalties. Every truth is contested, every image manipulated, and the line between patriotism and betrayal blurs with every step he takes.
Inspired by the Russian doctrine of maskirovka — deception through camouflage, imitation and misinformation — Willi Pochinov’s debut novel captures the menace and moral fog of our disinformation age.
Smart, unsettling and darkly witty, Maskirovka asks a question that feels more urgent than ever:
When reality can be fabricated, who — or what — can you trust?
Available on:
New Generation Publishing
Some thrillers swagger in with noise and spectacle. Maskirovka does the opposite: it slips in quietly, smiling politely, and before you realise what’s happening, you’ve been pulled into a web of deceit, theatre, misdirection, and national-scale chaos. Willi Pochinov’s debut novel is an audacious, gleefully crafted labyrinth of trickery—fitting, given its title refers to the Russian doctrine of deception—and it is written with the confidence of an author who has lived long enough, and widely enough, to understand the strangeness of human behaviour on every rung of society.From the very first chapter, Pochinov signals that this is not a straightforward military thriller, nor a satire, nor a comic romp—although it contains the DNA of all three. Instead, he orchestrates a careful dance between genres, leaving the reader perpetually unsure whether they should be bracing for violence, cracking a smile, or questioning their own assumptions. It’s a tight balancing act, and one of the book’s greatest strengths is how effortlessly it sustains that tonal ambiguity.At the centre of it all stands Captain Edward van der Velde, a man whose sense of duty is both his armour and his Achilles heel. Edward is competent, determined, slightly battered by life, and deeply human.
The Book Network
Maskirovka is a confident, quietly audacious debut that trades bombast for misdirection, pulling the reader into a meticulously controlled maze of deception, tonal ambiguity, and creeping national unease. Blending military thriller, satire, and dark comedy without ever settling into any one lane, Willi Pochinov sustains a constant sense of uncertainty—about genre, threat, and motive—that becomes the novel’s defining strength. Anchoring the chaos is Captain Edward van der Velde, a grounded, morally credible protagonist whose hard-won sense of duty drives him to act on fragmentary intelligence as reports of a strangely theatrical Russian “invasion” begin to surface. Pochinov excels at making danger feel unsettling precisely because it is plausible yet faintly off, reinforcing tension through withheld certainty rather than spectacle. Sharp, character-driven humour gives the soldiers authenticity without softening the stakes, while the introduction of Boo, a charismatic and reckless eco-activist, sharpens the novel’s central theme: that the boundary between performance, protest, and genuine threat is perilously thin.
Early Reader Review
“Maskirovka is an exciting, twisty, witty, entertaining, tender and very fishy thriller.”
Table Reads Magazine
“Maskirovka, a pulse-pounding thriller by debut author Willi Pochinov plunges disgraced officer Edward van der Velde into a web of Russian deception, coups, and disinformation from Suffolk to the Black Sea, where truth is the ultimate casualty.In an era where truth is a battlefield and deception reigns, Willi Pochinov’s debut novel emerges as a gripping political thriller that captures the zeitgeist of our disinformation age.”
Ed Handyside – Myrmidon Press / Cornerstones Editor
“You have an intriguing and original story – and an obvious and uncommon talent for imaginative storytelling and characterisation. You are also a very fluent and proficient writer with a good command of the language… Your sample chapters demonstrate that you have the rare components of novel writing, those precious, not easily taught ones, in abundance.”
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