The men chasing your hero are members of the Russian mob.  Tell us about them.  Can you compare them to the Italian Mafia?

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, a lot of Russian soldiers and spies found themselves out of work.  Their lethal skills made them especially suited to be gangsters. Many of them immigrated to the United States and settled in Brighton Beach near Coney Island in Brooklyn, where a lot of Russians moved in 1917 to avoid the Revolution. Sometimes we romanticize Italian mobsters until we think of them as Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather. But Russian gangsters can't be romanticized. "Sociopathic" doesn't begin to describe them. They have no scruples, no shame, no code of honor. There's no line they won't cross and no limit to their brutality.  An Italian gangster might suddenly feel patriotic and refuse if Middle Eastern terrorists offer to pay them to smuggle a dirty bomb into the United States.  But Russian mobsters will take the money, do the job, and get out of the way when the explosions start.

The precious object these ruthless men want is a baby.

That's what my hero, Paul Kagan, protects under his coat. The child of peace. He's the newborn son of a Palestinian who used to be a combat surgeon and is now an obstetrician who's determined to bring life into the world instead of caring for men about to die. The Palestinian has acquired many political followers and intends to use his child as a symbol of where the Mideast ought to be headed. But several factions, including Hamas, want to stop him at all costs. The situation in Israel is so destructive, you'd think common sense would bring the two sides to a compromise. But what isn't widely known is that many Palestinians receive money each week from anti-Israeli governments in exchange for their continuing terrorism. They've earned their living like this for so long that they can't imagine how they would support their families otherwise. For many, their motive doesn't involve politics as much as it does a steady income. Against this background, the Russian mob, hired by Hamas, will do anything to get their hands on the baby.

At one point, your hero breaks into a house that he thinks is empty, only to discover a woman and a twelve-year-old boy. As he prepares the house for a siege, he tries to calm them by telling them an unusual story about the Magi.

Yes, the spy's version of the nativity story. It's one of the reasons I wrote the novel. Booklist did me the favor of calling it "stunning."  It occurred to me that the Magi came from ancient Persia, which we now call Iran. They were religious-political leaders, whose modern equivalent are ayatollahs. Suppose their mission was to destabilize Herod's regime by telling him that they'd followed a blazing star to Israel to welcome a newborn king of the Jews.  Herod was so paranoid that he killed his wife and several sons. Imagine his reaction if he believed that a rival had been born and that this rival was predicted by sacred texts. He'd send his soldiers all over the country to eliminate the threat.  With so much confusion, it wouldn't be hard to overthrow his government. But as the Magi pretend to work for him, in effect becoming double agents, they suddenly discover evidence convincing them that the story they thought they'd made up is true.

Booklist also called The Spy Who Came for Christmas another change of pace for you. What do you suppose the reviewer meant?

This is my 36th year as a published author. An eternity for a writer. I think one reason I continue to have a following is that I always try to keep moving forward and find new ways to show what a thriller can be. All my books have action and suspense, but after that, I want to provide surprises so that neither my readers nor I get tired. Before I start a project, I write a note to myself in which I answer the question, "Why is this project worth a year of my life?" The answer needs to be something about trying new approaches and developing not only as a writer, but also as a person. The Spy Who Came for Christmas is my first true spy novel since Extreme Denial in 1996.  Back then, I decided I'd done everything I wanted in that particular type of thriller. But twelve years later, I see that genre in a new way and hope I brought something new to the game. My interior narrative in which Paul Kagan tells the spy's version of the nativity story--that was my reason for writing the novel. I can't tell you how much pleasure it gave me.

Contributing editor Jeff Ayers is the author of VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION: THE STAR TREK FICTION COMPANION Pocket Books-November 2006. He frequently reviews thrillers for Library Journal and regularly interviews authors for LJ, the Seattle Post-Intellgencer, and Writer Magazine.