Jason Matthews, C.I.A. Officer Turned Novelist, Dies at 69 After 33 years at the agency, he turned out three well-received novels that included realistic details of espionage — and appearances by Vladimir Putin. The novelist and former intelligence operative Jason Matthews in Bryant Park in Manhattan in 2015. His fiction, he said, was “an amalgam of people I’ve known, of things I’ve done, of stuff I’ve lived.”Credit...Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times May 2, 2021, 11:29 a.m. ET Jason Matthews, who after 33 years as a C.I.A. officer in Istanbul, Athens, Belgrade, Rome, Budapest and Hong Kong became a best-selling author of three spy thrillers, died on Wednesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 69.