Ballistic

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the dying light of an Arctic afternoon a vast black shape slips beneath the waters of Murmansk bay, her full complement of crew on board. But the Russian nuclear-powered submarine the Novorussiya is carrying something else - something so diabolically destructive that not all the crew are aware of this cargo.

Kilometres to the south, at a military base hidden in the frozen forests of Arctic Russia, a lone figure steps out into a blast of windblown snow. Unseen, Major Orlov makes his way to a distant corner of the base and retrieves a hidden transmitter. He knows all about the Novorussiya and what she’s carrying and he needs to alert his handlers in London. But Orlov also knows that the net of suspicion is closing in on him and he wants out. Fast.
When Orlov’s extraction across the border into Finland goes disastrously wrong MI6 assign Luke Carlton to team up with the formidable Finnish Special Forces officer Sini Järvinen to spearhead the quest to find out exactly what the Russian double-agent knew so the West can prepare. Their mission takes them across the border by night-time parachute drop, to the very edge of the Kola Peninsula, home to Russia’s ballistic missile fleet, then on to the tropical island of Tobago and a vine-clad villa where a terrible truth is revealed.
As tensions between the West and Russia reach fever pitch, can Luke Carlton and his Finnish accomplice discover the secrets of Moscow’s latest weapon before it’s too late?

© Frank Gardner 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026