Pirate

Sample

Max Kinnings

London, Christmas morning. 09:13am. Disgraced hedge fund manager Graham Poynter hides shamefully in his Belgravia mansion. All that separates him from the media hounds baying for his blood are wrought iron railings and an elite security team. 10:16am. A masked intruder stands over Poynter and his terrified family, while the last remaining security guard hangs impaled on a railing spike outside the house - a message of intent beamed to the watching world. 10:38am. Surrounding the scene are police helicopters, special forces teams, and Ed Mallory - blind hostage negotiator - who must stop this faceless adversary whose sights are set on exacting twisted retribution.

Sample

Francesca Kay

Set in London in the early eighties, award-winning novelist Francesca Kay's third novel tells the story of a spy who falls for the wrong woman. What happens to a man who has his ear pressed to the lives of others but not much life of his own? When Stephen Donaldson joins the Institute, he anticipates excitement, romance and new status. Instead he gets the tape-recorded conversations of ancient communists and ineffectual revolutionaries, until the day he is assigned a new case: the ultra-secret PHOENIX. Is PHOENIX really working for a foreign power? Stephen hardly cares; it is the voice of the target's wife that mesmerizes him. -- Publisher.

Sample

John Le Carré

A half-starved young Russian man claiming to be a devout Muslim, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, and a sixty-year-old scion of a failing British bank based in Hamburg form an unlikely alliance as the rival spies of Germany, England and America scent a sure kill in the "War on Terror," and converge upon the innocents.

Sample

K.J. Howe

Kidnap negotiator Thea Paris has spent her entire life with survivor's guilt, following an unspeakable childhood tragedy. At eight years old, she watched, frozen in fear, as her twelve-year-old brother, Nikos, was abducted from their home in Kanzi, Africa. Although he was recovered nine months later, he was never the same after that; worse, Thea discovers that she was supposed to have been the target. This defining experience drives Thea to become one of the top operatives in the field of kidnap-and-ransom consultancy. Nicknamed "Liberata" because she once secured the release of a captive from the Sicilian mob without her client paying a cent, she travels the globe trying to bring hostages home--mostly through negotiation, but occasionally through more forceful means. She is very good at her job.