International Spy Thrillers

Maurice Questing was left to die in a pool of boiling mud. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn knew that any number of people could have killed him: the English exiles he'd hated, the New Zealanders he'd despised or the Maoris he'd insulted. Even the spies he'd thwarted - if he wasn't a spy himself.

Over 20 years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. launched the dashing character of Blackford Oakes like a missile over the literary landscape. This newly minted CIA agent - brainy, bold, and complex - began his career by saving the queen of England and quickly took his place in the pantheon of master spies drawn up by Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. Against the backdrop of Cold War intrigue, in this, his 11th outing, Oakes crosses swords with Kim Philby, perhaps the highest ranking in the parade of defectors to the Soviet Union.

Set in China, and ripped from today's headlines, comes a pulse-pounding debut that reinvents the spy thriller for the 21st century. A lone man, Peanut, escapes a labor camp in the dead of night, fleeing across the winter desert of north-west China. Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British; now Peanut must disappear on Beijing's surveillance-blanketed streets. Desperate and ruthless, he reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via crusading journalist Philip Mangan, offering military secrets in return for extraction.

When the big man in Washington assigned Matt Helm to ride shotgun on a top-secret mission in Norway, Helm wanted to know why. But this was a need-to-know deal, at least until his partner - a woman posing as his mistress - was killed. Now Helm is mad - mad enough to blow the operation sky high.

High on a Cornish cliff sits a vast uninhabited mansion. Uninhabited except for Blake, a young woman of dubious background, secretive and alone, currently acting as housesitter. The house has a panic room. Cunningly concealed, steel lined, impregnable - and apparently closed from within. Even Blake doesn’t know it’s there. She’s too busy being on the run from life, from a story she thinks she’s escaped. But her remote existence is going to be invaded when people come looking for the house’s owner, missing rogue pharma entrepreneur Jack Harkness.

In a Syrian palace, the presidents of Russia and Iran undertake a clandestine meeting. No staff or advisors are permitted in the room. No records are kept. By necessity, however, there are two witnesses: the interpreters. The Russian, Ludmilla Kravchuk, returns to her hotel room burdened by what she has heard. When her Iranian counterpart is murdered before her eyes, Kravchuk fears she is next and goes into hiding in Syria.

Reeling from the aftermath of a rogue CIA plot to destroy Moscow, the United States is caught unprepared when foreign hackers launch a cyber-attack on the Strategic Early Warning System. With the CIA in shambles, the President turns to ex-intelligence analyst Kurt Vetter and his mysterious partner Amanda Carter to hunt down the hackers and bring them to justice. Little do they know this is the easy part...

He’s a well-traveled consultant arriving home at a metropolitan airport. He’s also become accustomed to extra scrutiny for his brown skin and many-stamped passport. But when he’s whisked away, isolated, and chained in a stark white room without explanation, his reality crumbles. Because what he doesn’t know is the most damning evidence against him.

Jack Sigler, call sign King, and the elite Chess Team operatives have been relentlessly hunting for their abducted former leader, Tom Duncan. An urgent call from George Pierce's shadowy Cerberus Group catapults them to the treacherous Southern Ocean, where they clash with ferocious prehistoric nightmares in a fight for survival.

High in the Italian alps, cut off from the outside world, sits a chapel battered by winds and icy blizzards. The priests who guard this sacred place have sworn to protect the dangerous treasure that lies within their walls. But when Joe Mason and his team are called to the remote church, they find its ancient stones reduced to rubble, the priests murdered in cold blood and their precious cargo stolen.

Terrorism in Europe has spun out of control. The United States has decided on a dramatic response. Now, the CIA needs a very special kind of operative. Scot Harvath has exactly the skills the CIA is looking for. He's a former U.S. Navy SEAL with extensive experience in espionage. Working for a private intelligence company, he will provide the CIA, and more important, the President, with absolute deniability.

Simon Riske sits in sun-dappled Napa Valley, toasting the record hundred-million-dollar sale of a rare 1963 Ferrari which he restored himself. The buyer, a sophisticated French woman, Sylvie Bettencourt, has purchased the car for an unnamed client whose anonymity she will guard at all costs.

At a benefit dinner in Monaco, Austrian playboy and CIA freelancer Malko Linge meets an intriguing woman, Zhanna Khrenkov, who has an unusual proposal. She will disclose everything she knows about her husband Alexei's business, provided Malko kills Alexei's beautiful young British mistress. Appalled, he refuses, but then Zhanna reveals that her husband runs a ring of sleeper Russian spies operating undercover inside the US. Naturally Malko's CIA handlers would love to have this information, but he feels uncomfortable killing anyone in cold blood - especially a beautiful woman.

Raven is a ruthless assassin, a hired killer, whose cold-blooded murder of the minister for war will have violent repercussions across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle, Raven goes on the run, hunted by the police and in search of the man who paid him in stolen banknotes, eventually unearthing the terrible truth behind his deadly assignment.

Has Ben Hope finally met his match? The master best seller returns with the explosive follow-up to Star of Africa. The second in a two-part series. Held hostage by a despicable tyrant in the heart of Africa - within the lawless and unforgiving Congo - it's not looking good for Ben Hope. Even worse, someone very important to him has fallen into the enemy's hands, and they're using this against Ben as part of a depraved plan to bend him to their will.

When terrorists try to shoot down a plane carrying Libyan prince Ibrahim al-Senussi, it is clear that someone wants him dead. But the CIA has its own plot for the prince: Now that Qaddafi has been overthrown, al-Senussi is their best bet to set up a constitutional monarchy and stem the Islamist tide in Libya. The CIA, which needs Malko as much as he needs them, sends the Austrian aristocrat to Cairo to learn more about al-Senussi’s plans by seducing his companion, a ravishing British model.

Sarah Ridgeway is living the life she’s always envisioned. She has a devoted husband, a loving daughter, and a comfortable home. The path to reach it, however, has not always been smooth. For twelve years her husband, Bryce, served in the Army, deployed to some of the world’s worst trouble spots. After his service ended with a combat injury, the future had seemed precarious, but with Sarah’s support and that of his wealthy family, combined with his exemplary service record, he is elected to Congress.

Sixty years ago, an eccentric Hungarian genius discovered how to artificially trigger a shift in the polar ice caps that could cause massive eruptions, earthquakes, and even climate changes. But then his work disappeared, or so it was thought. Now, the charismatic leader of an anti-globalization group plans to use it to give the world’s industrialized nations a small jolt before reversing the shift back again. The only problem is, it cannot be reversed. Once it starts, there is nothing anyone can do.

At a luxury resort on the coast of Uruguay, Jessica Petrovich and a select team of Black Flagged operatives prepare to kill Dr. Anatoly Reznikov, the elusive bioweapons scientist responsible for designing and selling a lethal virus to America's enemies. At the same time, a Mossad assassination cell moves on a Russian mafiya boss believed to have offered Reznikov's bioweapons to the Iranians.

Elle Anderson waited until he was right on top of her. When he turned to yell for security, she shot her blade across the back of his ankle, cutting his Achilles tendon. The shock robbed him of his voice, and his body went crashing to the ground. She covered his mouth and slit his throat. His body convulsed, making it harder to drag him into the shadows, but she needed to buy herself some time.