Book description
Re-inventing the spy story for the 21st Century.
John Le Carre meets Jason Bourne!
Salim Dhar is the world's most wanted terrorist. The CIA is under
pressure to hunt him down, after he narrowly failed to kill the US
president. The borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan are the target of
relentless drone strikes. Echelon, the West's intelligence analysis
network, is in meltdown, monitoring all channels for the faintest trace
of Dhar. But no one can find him. Only Daniel Marchant, renegade MI6
officer, knows where he is.
Marchant has been living in Marrakech, listening to the traditional
Berber storytellers as they enthral tourists with tales from The Arabian
Nights. Marchant believes that Dhar has shunned technology, retreating
to old customs:coded messages for Dhar are being embedded in ancient narratives.
When a man flees from the square, Marchant pursues him up into the
Atlas Mountains, where he sees an unmarked military helicopter take off
and head east. Is someone shielding Dhar to perpetrate an act of proxy
terrorism on the West? Or is the CIA right when it claims to have killed him?
To discover the truth, Marchant must be recruited by Moscow. But Marcus
Fielding, erudite Chief of MI6, doubts that his young intelligence
officer has the mental strength to be a double agent. It's a role that
will require him to believe his late father was a traitor, an allegation
that Marchant fought long and hard to dispel. Now he must rekindle those
rumours and confront dark truths about his own loyalties. He must also
work with Lakshmi Meena, the CIA's beautiful new liaison officer in
London. Can he ever trust a woman-or an American-again after being
betrayed by her predecessor?
As Britain braces itself for an airborne terrorist attack, Marchant
survives torture in Morocco and India in his bid to find and stop Dhar.
Will family ties ultimately prove more binding than ideology? In an
absorbing thriller that combines the nuances of Cold War Le Carre with
the ejector-seat excitement of Top Gun, Marchant discovers that
treachery is the greatest game of all. 'Espionage action at its best'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Picks up more or less where Le Carré left off' GUARDIAN
'As elegant as le Carre and as cynical as the twenty-first century …
exactly what we need from a spy novel now' Lee Child Prior to becoming
a writer, Jon Stock was Weekend editor of the Telegraph. He is the
author of three novels, 'The Riot Act,' 'The Cardamom Club' and 'Dead
Spy Running.' He is also a columnist with The Week magazine in India. He
lives in Wiltshire with his wife and three young children.
