Is ‘The Night Agent’ Based on a True Story or a Book? Explained 

I’m not usually a big fan of political thrillers, mainly because they usually aren’t that good. However, as Netflix started spinning out shows like Treason and The Recruit, I decided to give the genre a chance. One of the more recent Netflix shows that captivated me was The Night Agent. It felt so plausible and real we naturally started to wonder – is it based on a true story?

The Night Agent is based on a book of the same name, written and published in 2019 by the author Matthew Quirk. While The Night Agent is an entirely fictional story, it was inspired by several major true events revolving around government moles, political conspiracies, and highly media-covered scandals.

As you get deeper into the story, you’ll realize just how complex and full of twists it is. The main character went from a low-level FBI night agent to someone intertwined in a huge conspiracy and a situation that can turn the entire United States of America upside down. Here’s what inspired Matthew Quirk to write such a story.

What is The Night Agent about?

The Night Agent is a Netflix original series that’s full of drama, action, and politics. After all, it is a political thriller that mainly depicts a huge crisis developing way up in the US government.

Peter Sutherland, the main character of the series, is a low-level FBI agent who works as a night shift agent in the basement of the White House, sitting next to a phone, waiting for it to ring. Should the phone ring, it means that a crisis is taking place that needs to be addressed right away – it cannot even wait for the morning.

Rarely does something like that happen, so Peter’s work is usually just sitting and waiting for a ring that never comes. However, one night, the phone rings, and Sutherland’s life change in a blink of an eye.

There’s a mole within the US government’s highest ranks, and it’s mainly on Peter to find out who the mysterious perpetrator is. If he wants to save his country, Sutherland has to take a deep dive into the mystery that will lead him deep into a conspiracy and all the way to the Oval Office and the President himself.

To add to it, Sutherland is working with Rose Larkin – a CEO who is followed by assassins wherever she goes, essentially carrying her head in a bag 24/7. Every time you think you got this show figured out, a new twist will emerge that will hook you to your seat again and again until you’re convinced that everybody is in on the conspiracy.

What was The Night Agent based on?

The Night Agent storyline is so complex, and yet, it feels so real. The showrunners certainly tried to ensure that they based everything on reality – on plausible scenarios that could actually happen in real life. So, was The Night Agent based on a true story? And, if not, what was it based on?

The Night Agent was actually based on a book – a political thriller titled The Night Agent, published in 2019. The book’s author is Matthew Quirk, a writer who got a degree at Harvard and then got a job as a reporter for The Atlantic. 

That’s where he essentially found his niche – reporting on terrorism prosecutions, international gangs and mafia, political prosecutions, crime, and even private military contractors. It sparked his interest, and in 2012, he published his first novel, a political thriller called The 500.

Since then, Quirk has published seven more novels; an eighth is expected to be published this year, in 2023. The Night Agent was published in 2019 and is considered Quirk’s best work.

Where did the inspiration for The Night Agent come from, though?

Was The Night Agent book based on a true story?

Matthew Quirk writes political thriller fiction. However, he tends to seek inspiration and base his books on real-life events – much like most other writers do. The Night Agent was no exception, and he based it on several real-life events that took place around the time when he was writing, as well as some people in his life.

While speaking to The Real Book Spy in 2019, Matthew revealed that the plot was inspired by his friend, who also worked as an FBI night agent:

“He didn’t talk much about his job back then, but from what I was able to pick up he was part of a night watch, charged with staying on top of any breaking crises and if need be waking up the director. 

That idea really stuck with me: a young guy sitting by a phone all night every night, waiting for his moment.  What happens when the phone rings and he’s suddenly dropped into the middle of an emergency, face-to-face with the most powerful people in Washington? 

For research, I talked to my friend and his job actually turned out to be quite a bit more interesting and hush-hush than I had suspected, one of several factors which led me to place the novel’s action in the White House Situation Room.”

He added that he talked to many people from the FBI and CIA who could give him bits of information about what happens when a crisis actually strikes:

“I had a chance to talk to someone who was personally involved in one of the most notorious real-life mole hunts, the Robert Hanssen case. Fascinating stuff. The hardest part was choosing what research to leave out.”

As the conversation continued, quirk revealed that The Night Agent could’ve actually ended up being even ‘more real’ than it turned out to be, but later revisions made the story a bit different – and more fictional:

“I started with some news stories that were then relatively under the radar, and spun out a grand fictional conspiracy plot, but some of it ended up being a little too close to the truth. That forced me to revisit the plot and think of ways to stay ahead of the headlines and keep readers guessing. It ultimately made for a much stronger, twistier book.”

In case you didn’t know, Robert Hanssen was a spy for Russian Intelligence that worked in the FBI for over twenty years before finally being caught. However, it wasn’t the only case Quirk used for inspiration.

There was also the Mikhail Lesin case. He was the press minister in Vladimir Putin’s government, who was found dead in a Washington hotel in 2015. A year later, conspiracies started flying around about the Russian government being involved in rigging the 2016 US presidential elections.

There was a lot of material that Matthew Quirk used as a real-life base for his fictional story, but in the end, The Night Agent still remains a piece of fiction.

The Night Agent premiered on Netflix on March 23, 2023, and is available for streaming right now in most countries across the globe.