Lying Lips

A seasoned, restless traveler meets a poised young woman on an Edinburgh-to-London express and finds himself captivated by her beauty, foreign inflection, and carefully guarded unease. A lean, dark-eyed passenger watches her from across the dining car; exchanged gestures, a devastating telegram, and a pencilled cipher suggest that her tale of an unwanted pursuer conceals something far more dangerous.

After their parting in London fog, a newspaper report links the same cipher—and a gift bearing her name—to the unexplained death of an unidentified man near a country road. When an inscrutable financier delivers an invitation to a secret meeting, the traveler must decide whether to honor his promise of friendship or heed every warning surrounding her. Following fragments of code, shifting identities, and a shadowy network known as the Black Three, he enters a world where trust may be the most costly deception.