The Russian Key


Jeri Laber - 2021
    . . Those seeking a fresh take on the genre will be satisfied.”—Publishers WeeklyAn exciting debut for fans of The Americans and Red Sparrow.             In 1964, at the height of the Cold War, Kate Landau, a young American expert on Russia, joins the CIA. Drawn to danger and adventure, she hopes to be sent to Moscow, but instead finds herself stuck in an office doing boring translations. When her big break comes, she’s recruited to work undercover in New York City, investigating a KGB officer posing as a UN diplomat. Exactly the kind of work she’d hoped for.   The KGB officer is not a stranger. She’d met him in Moscow years before when he was a handsome university student named Max and she was a naive American college girl visiting the Soviet Union on a rare friendship tour. Max had been her first lover. She still treasures the little gold key he'd given her one memorable night in a Moscow park.   When Kate and Max meet up again in New York and inevitably resume their love affair, it is passionate, but fraught with distrust and secret agendas. A series of dangerous events lead Kate to fear for her life—and to suspect the man who is both her lover and her enemy. Against a background of Soviet brutality and international intrigue, The Russian Key will keep you guessing as it builds to its shocking and unexpected climax.

The Protector


Mike Lunnon-Wood - 2020
    Titus Quayle was the best MI6 ever had – an operative of exceptional and lethal ability. But they burned him, abandoned him, and left him for dead. Holly Morton is the daughter of the spymaster who first recognised Quayle’s potential and the key to unlocking a global conspiracy her father died trying to bring down. To uncover the truth, Quayle must keep her safe from the threat of a powerful enemy in a globetrotting race against time. Nowhere is safe. But to survive in a secret world of spies and assassins, kill orders and kingpins, there’s no one you’d rather have by your side than Titus Quayle… NOTE: THE PROTECTOR was originally titled BROKEN SQUARE.

The Secret of Hades' Eden


Graham J. Thomson - 2011
    When Ella Moore, a brilliant Egyptologist at Cambridge University, receives a strange and unexpected inheritance from her murdered father – a cryptic note, a mysterious painting and a gold ring emblazoned with a strange symbol – she embarks on a deadly journey to locate an ancient and mysterious book. Hidden for over two-thousand years, and protected by an ancient cult, the book holds the secrets of a long forgotten civilisation. Secrets that would rock the foundations of Western society and religion. Secrets worth killing for. Agent William Temple, a former special forces intelligence officer, has just joined F-Branch, a covert operational arm of MI6. For his first mission he is assigned to investigate a secret society who plan to release a genetically engineered virus. After William rescues Ella from abduction, they join forces in the hunt for the book. Pursued by a ruthless assassin working for the world’s most ancient secret society, together they must decode the mysteries of her father’s legacy and find the book before it falls into the hands of evil and is lost forever. Find the book. Find the vaccine. The clock is ticking...

Message from Absalom


Anne Armstrong Thompson - 1975
    Four years later, Susannah left her covert job with the CIA, still wondering where Novak had been sent, what important and dangerous assignment claimed him. Then - on an innocent vacation in Bulgaria - she watches as Novak is shot down on a street in Sofia. But Susannah already has his message, an urgent message that she alone must deliver to the President of the United States.And Susannah is back in the business again - with no one to trust, no one to help her, and one of the best agents in the Russian KGB pursuing her. As this shrewd, handsome, magnetic man comes closer to her secret, Susannah finds herself irresistibly attracted to the one man who can destroy her.

The Defector


Evelyn Anthony - 1981
    She was his debriefer: Davina Graham, a dedicated British operative who made her work her life. But he was lonely and bored, and he missed his family. So she took him home...When she fell in love with Sasanov, Davina Graham already knew that he would only co-operate if they brought his wife and daughter out of Russia. It was an almost impossible mission - booby-trapped by treachery and studded with deceit - but it was one for which she had to volunteer.Even if by some strange and miraculous twist of fate she succeeded as an agent, she would have lost the only thing she wanted as a woman.

Russian Next Door


Flora Ferrari - 2019
    I binge watched The Americans.I saw what happened with the last election.I even read McMafia and streamed the BBC TV show of the same name.I thought it wasn’t all that real…until it happened to me.

Eves of Destruction


Roy Berelowitz - 2009
    One survivor, a veteran agent named Casey Jennings, endures a brutal run for survival from the Taliban. Before reaching safety, she makes a shocking discovery, the magnitude of which is not immediately apparent. Unusual circumstances bring Casey together with a retired KGB officer into an awkward alliance as they struggle to stop another rogue KGB agent from activating an old Soviet plot. Casey is initially reluctant to work with the retired agent, but when he reveals a personal motivation for stopping his former colleague, they develop a common bond. Eves of Destruction takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of action and suspense in Afghanistan, Rome and London and finally to San Francisco where the retired KGB agent, the FBI and the police work desperately to prevent a massive terrorist attack on an American institution.

The Beria Papers


Alan Williams - 1973
    He was Stalin’s closest henchman. At one time he had a million armed men under his direct personal command. He was a sadist and a mass murderer. And he was also a vicious rapist with a compulsive appetite for young girls. This is possible: Beria may have kept a private diary in which he lovingly recorded his sexual activities, his murders, various scandals involving men now highly placed in the Soviet hierarchy — and the true facts of Stalin’s death. This is certain: The publication of Beria’s diary would cause the greatest political scandal the world has ever known — and set off a deadly manhunt for those responsible for its release … The private diaries of Beria — Stalin’s notorious chief of secret police — are a lurid, shattering indictment of Russian political methods and contain a new account of what really happened at Stalin’s death. They confirm Beria as one of the greatest human monsters of our time, both in his personal life and in his political manipulations of top Soviet politicians, some of whom are in power today. The Beria Papers are sold to an American publisher for three million dollars. On publication they are an immediate, sensational bestseller. They cause panic in Moscow and outrage everywhere — even in the upper echelons of the U.S. government, where there is fear that such revelations will create a dangerous precedent in smear campaigns against world leaders. So the world’s two most powerful secret services — the Soviet KGB and the American CIA — are ordered to track down the book’s origin. Their investigations range from New York to Washington, to London, Moscow, Munich, Budapest, Vienna and finally to a small island in the Indian Ocean where the activities of the two secret agencies come horrifically together. But can The Beria Papers possibly be a hoax? Praise for The Beria Papers: ‘Intriguing and gripping … compulsively exciting’ - Sunday Express ‘Both exciting and really convincing … fascinating. Part adventure, part thriller, part a documentary of might-have-been history, The Beria Papers is the best thing of its kind for a long time.’ - Sunday Times ‘The most interesting and original thriller since The Odessa File … a sharp and intelligent thriller that cries out for filming.’ - Daily Mail ‘Intriguing and gripping … not merely compulsively exciting entertainment, it is also so well researched and the background appears so absolutely authentic that the whole fantastic story could just be true.’ - Sunday Express Alan Emlyn Williams(born 1935) is an ex-foreign correspondent, novelist and writer of thrillers. He was educated at Stowe, Grenoble and Heidelberg Universities, and at King's College, Cambridge where he graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in modern languages. His father was the actor and writer Emlyn Williams.

Red To Black


Alex Dryden - 2008
    Instead they find a love that becomes to only truth they can trust. A source deep within the Kremlin tells Finn of a plan, hatched in the depths of the Cold War, to dismantle the edifice of the communist state and to bring about the rise of a new imperium within Russia: a plan to control the whole of Europe. Finn's masters in London are blinded by the new wealth pouring out of Russia and he must leave the Service and work in secrecy to uncover the deadly threat it poses to the freedom of every one of us.

Running Hot


HelenKay Dimon - 2014
    Ward may be on the job, but that doesn't mean there isn't time for the sexy female bartender. That is, until she drugs him.When Tasha Gregory discovers the hottie on the barstool isn't who he pretends to be, her MI6 training kicks into gear, and she has no choice but to take him out. Problem is, Ward's not an easy man to put down for long. More than once, his interference almost blows her surveillance operation—and her ability to keep her heart to herself.As the situation heats up, these two must decide whether they can trust one another—and quick. Working together might just make everyone safer, but getting close enough for comfort … might just get them killed.

Sanction


William Hunter - 2017
    With his cover blown, Garrett is on the run from an assassin desperate to erase his tracks, and authorities who believe he is responsible for the murder. Banastre Montjoy, a burned-out head of section at the Secret Intelligence Service, is in a race himself to discover if the scholar's death is linked to a bombing of the London Underground a year earlier. Montjoy's nemesis, the power-hungry and scheming Berwyn Rees, seeks to drum his rival out of MI6, while maneuvering to become deputy chief.With time running out, SOG operators are sent in by the CIA to locate and extract Garrett. As Laurent, MI5, and Scotland Yard close in on their target, Montjoy uncovers a devastating secret, one that someone inside the British government has sought to keep buried since World War II.

Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin


Roland W. Haas - 2007
    He underwent intensive training to prepare for insertion into hostile areas, including High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachuting and weapons instruction. In the course of his first mission (to East and West Germany, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Romania, and Austria), he assassinated several international drug dealers. On his return, he was thrown into an Iranian prison, where he was physically and psychologically tortured. Over the next thirty years, he served the agency on an as-needed basis, engaging in such activities as hunting down and eliminating members of the Red Army Faction and extracting Soviet Spetsnaz officers from East Germany. His cover jobs included being a part owner of an Oakland health club, which brought him into close contact with steroid abuse in professional athletics, drug abuse in general, and the Hell’s Angels, whom he believes tried to have him killed. He also served in Germany as site commander for the Conventional Forces in Europe weapons treaty. His most recent cover was as the deputy director of intelligence in the U.S. Army Reserve Command, which involved him with the Guantanamo detention facility.A true story that pulls no punches, Enter the Past Tense also chronicles Haas’s descent into, and recovery from, alcoholism that resulted from the stress of this extraordinary life. It is an eye-opening look at the dark, but many would argue necessary, side of intelligence work—and one that readers won’t soon forget.

Shiver


Heather Slade - 2019
    . . Thornton “Shiver” Whittaker, Marquess of Wells and MI6 agent, put his life and that of his colleagues on the line to negotiate Orina "Losha” Kuznetsov’s freedom from United Russia. But now that the $10 million bounty has been removed from the beautiful but deadly Russian assassin’s head, she not only refuses to come out of hiding, she refuses to have anything to do with him. Shiver has always put MI6 first, even before his family, who, with his father on his deathbed, is insisting he return to England and fulfill his duty as marquess to take over as Duke of Bedfordshire when his father dies. But the woman he loves isn’t in England. He isn’t sure where she is, but he has to find her and convince her to spend her life with him. It isn’t just that Orina Kuznetsov is afraid that United Russia won’t hold up their end of the bargain, there’s another secret Shiver can never find out and that’s what keeps her from giving in to him.

Berlin: Caught in the Mousetrap


Paul Grant - 2017
    People are fleeing East Berlin while they can. The East German authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on the "Bordercrossers". Klaus Schultz is handed documents outlining Ulbricht's plans to build a wall, but are they genuine? Impetuous journalist Jack Kaymer discovers an East Berlin warehouse brimming with concrete posts and barbed wire. The headstrong Eva Schultz continues to live in the eastern sector whilst working in the west. The Stasi coerce Jack to stop him publishing his story and take his girlfriend, Eva as the bargaining chip. In spite of their original enmity, Jack and Klaus work together to have Eva released before the border is closed, but Klaus' past comes back to haunt them. Can Jack and Klaus outwit the Stasi? Will they get Eva out alive? Meanwhile, Colonel Hans Erdmann of the People's Army is losing faith in the regime. His bosses want to put him out to grass. When they find Hans harder to dislodge than they anticipated, they resort to dirty tactics. Hans sees the end coming and decides it's time to get out. Their destinies are all firmly in the hands of the wily, KGB spymaster, Burzin and his arch rival General Dobrovsky. Set against the backdrop of the Berlin Crisis, "Caught in the Mousetrap" is a fast-paced thriller for the lovers of Cold War Berlin and those who enjoy a story in the Len Deighton mould, with a touch of Bernie Gunther thrown in. The story of the Schultz family has begun...2x Longlisted Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. Winner CWA History Dagger.

Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas


David Wise - 2000
    At the highest levels of the government, its code name was Operation Shocker. Lured by a double agent working for the USA, ten Russian spies, including a University of Minnesota professor, his wife & a classic sleeper spy in NYC, were sent by Moscow to penetrate America's secrets. Two FBI agents were killed & secret formulae were passed to the USSR in a dangerous ploy that may have spurred Moscow to create the world's most powerful nerve gas. Cassidy's Run tells this true story for the 1st time, following a trail that leads from DC to Moscow, with detours to Florida, Minnesota & Mexico. Based on documents secret until now & scores of interviews in the USA & USSR, the book reveals that: more than 4500 pages of classified documents, including US nerve gas formulas, were passed to the USSR in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars; an Armageddon code: a telephone call to a number in NYC, was to alert the sleeper spy to an impending nuclear attack--a warning he would transmit to the Soviets by radio signal from atop a rock in Central Park; two FBI agents were killed when their plane crashed during surveillance of one of the spies as he headed for the Canadian border; secret drops for microdots were set up by Moscow from NY to Florida to DC. More than a cloak-&-dagger tale, Cassidy's Run is the story of one ordinary man, Sergeant Joe Cassidy, not trained as a spy, who suddenly found himself the FBI's secret weapon in a dangerous clandestine war.