ICARUS 17

'Nobody writes more enjoyable spy thrillers than Charles Cumming’

ANTHONY HOROWITZ

‘Cumming has breathed new life into the spy novel’

BEN MACINTYRE

'The rightful inheritor of John le Carré's crown'

OBSERVER

Lachlan Kite should have left fieldwork behind by now.

As director of covert intelligence agency Box 88, he’s at the apex of his espionage career. But when Martha Raine – a woman he hasn’t seen in twenty years – begs for his help, Kite finds himself back in the game, racing to avert disaster.

Kite must find Martha’s son, Max, who vanished in Athens with his girlfriend, Yasmine. But the couple aren’t just missing, they’re running for their lives. Two rival agencies are hunting them, both with orders to kill on sight.

Max and Yasmine are carrying a dizzying secret, one which could pull apart the foundations of the Middle East for a generation. If Kite fails to save them, the costs – both personal and professional – will be catastrophic.

'If there was any question as to who is the rightful inheritor of John le Carré’s crown as the king of elegant spy fiction, this proves that it’s Cumming beyond any doubt' Observer

About the author

Charles Cumming was born in Scotland in 1971. Shortly after university, he was approached for recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), an experience that inspired his first novel, A Spy by Nature. He has written several bestselling thrillers, including A Foreign Country which won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller and the Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year. He worked on Sky’s acclaimed drama The Day of the Jackal and was the screenwriter of the Gerard Butler movie Plane. He lives in London.