"The book moves briskly from one crisp scene to the next, and ultimately casts a spell as captivating as Rules of Civility, a book that inhales you into its seductively Gatsby-esque universe." —Town & CountryFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, "Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change." A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an...

For the past three decades Robert Ludlum's bestselling novels have been enjoyed by hundreds of millions of readers worldwide and have set the standard against which all other thrillers are measured. His Covert-One series has been among his most beloved creations. Now comes the latest thrilling novel in the series:Robert Ludlum's The Moscow VectorAt an international conference in Prague, Lt. Col. Jon Smith, an Army research doctor specializing in infectious diseases and secretly an agent attached to Covert-One, is contacted by a Russian colleague, Dr. Valentine Petrenko. Petrenko is concerned about a small cluster of mysterious deaths in Moscow and about the Russian government's refusal to release publicly any information or data on the outbreak. When the two meet, they are attacked by a group of mysterious men and Petrenko is killed. His notes and medical samples are lost, and Smith barely escapes with his life.At the same time, a...

#1 Shades of Gray: Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness starts this series and follows the adventures of Kat and Kim. Continue this serial series and find out more about these women and the world of danger and mystery they must survive in. Shades Of Gray Series follows the adventures of Kat, a woman with no memory of her past who is called the Pandora Project by those who hunt her, and Kim, a woman...#1 Shades of Gray: Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness starts this series and follows the adventures of Kat and Kim. Continue this serial series and find out more about these women and the world of danger and mystery they must survive in.The Shades Of Gray Series follows the adventures of Kat, a woman with no memory of her past who is called the Pandora Project by those who hunt her, and Kim, a woman leading the life of a legal assassin called a Life Closer. The world they live in is plagued by clouds that prevent the sun from shining down on the land called Dry Clouds, making all who live in Noir forced to live in endless night.Kat searches for clues to her past while androids called Un-Men and human bounty hunters try to kill her, and Kim searches for who murdered her mother. The two women's paths collide, and they form a shaky partnership to unravel the mysteries that haunt their lives and they try to protect one another from those who do not wish for them to discover the truth.Everyone's soul is marked by a color. Which shade of gray will they hold to?#2 Shades of Gray: From Moscow, With Love:Beta Phase Edition - 2014 Cover EditionWorlds collide...A shaky partnership...In the second book of the Shades of Gray series, Kat found herself teamed up with Kim. Together they searched for clues to their past. Their partnership stood on shaky ground though. Kim, a Life Closer (legal assassin) known as the Phoenix, needed Kat for the moment, to help in her search for her mother's murder. Once Kim no longer needed Kat, would the Phoenix go through with eliminating her for knowing she's a Life Closer?A haunting melody...A forgotten time...Kat had discovered little about her past. Over a year ago, she woke to a world of endless night and had no memory of who she was. A music box, a letter, and a gun were her only clues. Kat discovered the melody the music box plays, put her in a trance and healed her body of any injures. Why? She didn't't know.Betrayal...A desperate fight...Voice, the one who regulated the Phoenix, had sent the Raven and the Wolf to Close her. Why? Kim didn't't know, only that she must eliminate the two Life Closers before they terminated her.Deception...The two women collide again...Kat was caught up in the struggle as the Raven and the Wolf were also hired to Close the sister of someone dear to her. Now she must protect the sister and Kim, but the Phoenix was hiding a dark secret that put the sister in an even deadlier predicament. What was Kim hiding?I will protect them all...No one will die today...Could Kat and Kim defeat the two Closers? Could Kat keep the promise to herself that no one else would die? What would happen in the end when Kat discovered the Phoenix's secret?**Shades of Gray Series**(STARTING POINT QUADRILOGY)#1 Shades of Gray: Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness#2 Shades of Gray: From Moscow, With Love#3 Shades of Gray: Cerberus Versus Pandora#4 Shades of Gray: Sisters

Tucked away deep in the hills of Dubna lives a man hiding from a past that's as grisly as the scar on his face. Reclusive. Paranoid. Violent. His trek to the top has been a bloody game—with a deadly end for anyone who loses. And it's not over yet. Vera Avdonin stumbled into the life of Vaslav Pashkov entirely by accident, and it should have stopped there, too. Just a broken ballerina who helped a beautifully tortured stranger. But she'll soon learn that like the mafiya he controls, once he brings you in, there is no way out. They don't call him The Beast of Moscow for nothing. *The Beast of Moscow is a slow burn, contemporary romance saga told over the course of several parts and encompassing more than one generation from start to finish. Only part of this is a love story; everything else hurts. TBOM—taking readers from Moscow to Paris while peeling back the beginning layers of Vaslav Pashkov—is part one. 

The thrilling, true story of the race to find a leak in the United States Embassy in Moscow—before more American assets are rounded up and killed. Foreword by Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Retd.), Former Director of NSA & CIAIn the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist—those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia, but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know. The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when—much like today—Russian spycraft had proven itself far beyond the best technology the U.S. had to offer. The perils...

"The Moscow Affair is a thoroughly entertaining and unforgettable thriller punctuated by smart dialog, richly crafted scenes, and a topical plot." –Dave Edlund, USA Today bestselling author of Valiant SavageIn this fast-paced mystery, P.I. Nicole Graves agrees to an unusual, short-term assignment working for MI6 in Russia. It sounds straight-forward, even pleasant: a two-week luxury riverboat cruise on the Volga, observing a group of fellow passengers and filing a daily report on their activities. It's simple enough, except for one caveat: No matter what these people do, she's to tell her handler at MI6—no one else, especially not the Russian police. When one of the riverboat passengers winds up dead, Nicole realizes this assignment was anything but straightforward.Soon, Nicole is immersed in a high-stakes game of murder and espionage where trusting a stranger can be as deadly as a bullet.?"Nicole Graves is the best fictional...

America's first line of defense—Brad McLanahan and the heroes of the Iron Wolf Squadron—must counter a dangerous Russian strike from within the homeland in this cutting-edge tale from the New York Times master of the high-tech military thriller, Dale Brown.On a remote island estate, a billionaire investor sells his air freight company to a mysterious new owner. The purchaser is none other than the President of Russia, Gennadiy Gryzlov. The Russians will use these private planes to secretly transport dangerous cargo into the United States.The inept American President Stacy Anne Barbeau has failed to account for the Russian threat. But others have been vigilant and will not leave America defenseless. Brad McLanahan and the Iron Wolf Squadron have joined forces with the newly formed Alliance of Free Nations in Eastern Europe, to prepare for the attack they know is imminent. Working with the most cutting-edge technology, the team will deploy...

Kidnapping one's future father-in-law is par for the course for a man like Vaslav Pashkov. Even if done with the best of intentions. But ensuring a safe arrival, and departure, of Vera's father is simply one loose end of many for Vaslav to tie up. And his timeline to finish pertinent business just tightened up. Now, there's a wedding to plan. Didn't you hear? The beast is getting married.  * The Beauty Who Loved Him is book 3 in The Beast of Moscow saga. While it does end with a HFN, there is one more book to finish out the couple. TBWLH should only be read after book 1 and 2.

M*A*S*H Goes to Moscow  

In the thick of the Cold War, a betrayal at the highest level risks the lives of two courageous female spies: MI6's best Soviet agent and the CIA's newest Moscow recruit.Vienna, 1954After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter's birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother's birth. She begins passing intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.Moscow, 1980A student in the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and...

In this elegant gothic horror tale set in post-revolutionary Russia, two formerly aristocratic sisters race to uncover their family’s long-buried secrets in a house haunted by a past dangerous—and deadly—to remember.It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva’s ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.Eager to escape it and their unwelcome new landlords, Irina and Lili find jobs with the recently arrived American Relief...

There are few campaigns that, either in point of the immense scale upon which it was undertaken, the completeness of its failure, or the enormous loss of life entailed, appeal to the imagination in so great a degree as that of Napoleon against Russia. Fortunately, we have in the narratives of Sir Robert Wilson, British commissioner with the Russian army, and of Count Segur, who was upon Napoleon\'s staff, minute descriptions of the events as seen by eye-witnesses, and besides these the campaign has been treated fully by various military writers. I have as usual avoided going into details of horrors and of acts of cruelty and ferocity on both sides, surpassing anything in modern warfare, and have given a mere outline of the operations, with a full account of the stern fight at Smolensk and the terrible struggle at Borodino.

As soon as Napoleon and his Grand Army entered Moscow, on 14 September 1812, the capital erupted in flames that eventually engulfed and destroyed two thirds of the city. The fiery devastation had a profound effect on the Grand Army, but for thirty-five days Napoleon stayed, making increasingly desperate efforts to achieve peace with Russia. Then, in October, almost surrounded by the Russians and with winter fast approaching, he abandoned the capital and embarked on the long, bitter retreat that destroyed his army. The month-long stay in Moscow was a pivotal moment in the war of 1812 – the moment when the initiative swung towards the Tsar’s armies and spelled doom for the invading Grand Army – yet it has rarely been studied in the same depth as the other key events of the campaign. Alexander Mikaberidze, in this third volume of his in-depth reassessment of the war between the French and Russian empires, emphasizes the importance of the Moscow fire and shows how Russian intransigence sealed the fate of the French army. He uses a vast array of French, German, Polish and Russian memoirs, letters and diaries as well as archival material in order to tell the dramatic story of the Moscow fire. Not only does he provide a comprehensive account of events, looking at them from both the French and Russian points of view, but he explores the Russians’ motives for leaving, then burning their capital. Using extensive eyewitness accounts, he paints a vivid picture of the harsh reality of life in the remains of the occupied city and describes military operations around Moscow at this turning point in the campaign.

Alexander Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow is among the most important pieces of writing to come out of Russia in the age of Catherine the Great. An account of a fictional journey along a postal route, it blends literature, philosophy, and political economy to expose social and economic injustices and their causes at all levels of Russian society. Not long after the book's publication in 1790, Radishchev was condemned to death for its radicalism and ultimately exiled to Siberia instead.Radishchev's literary journey is guided by intense moral conviction. He sought to confront the reader with urgent ethical questions, laying bare the cruelty of serfdom and other institutionalized forms of exploitation. The Journey's multiple strands include sentimental fictions, allegorical discourses, poetry, theatrical plots, historical essays, a treatise on raising children, and comments on corruption and political economy, all informed by Enlightenment... Alexander Radishchev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow is among the most important pieces of writing to come out of Russia in the age of Catherine the Great. An account of a fictional journey along a postal route, it blends literature, philosophy, and political economy to expose social and economic injustices and their causes at all levels of Russian society. Not long after the book’s publication in 1790, Radishchev was condemned to death for its radicalism and ultimately exiled to Siberia instead. Radishchev’s literary journey is guided by intense moral conviction. He sought to confront the reader with urgent ethical questions, laying bare the cruelty of serfdom and other institutionalized forms of exploitation. The Journey’s multiple strands include sentimental fictions, allegorical discourses, poetry, theatrical plots, historical essays, a treatise on raising children, and comments on corruption and political economy, all informed by Enlightenment arguments and an interest in placing Russia in its European context. Radishchev is perhaps the first in a long line of Russian writer-dissenters such as Herzen and Solzhenitsyn who created a singular literary idiom to express a subversive message. In Andrew Kahn and Irina Reyfman’s idiomatic and stylistically sensitive translation, one of imperial Russia’s most notorious clandestine books is now accessible to English-speaking readers. Alexander Radishchev was born in 1749 to a minor noble family and began writing verse and prose in the 1780s. In 1790, after the publication of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow caused an uproar, he was arrested and sentenced to death before being exiled to Siberia. Tsar Paul allowed him to return, and Alexander I pardoned him and appointed him to the Commission for Drafting of New Laws. Radishchev committed suicide in 1802. Andrew Kahn is professor of Russian literature at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Irina Reyfman is professor of Russian literature in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University.

A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?CIA officers Sia and Max enter Russia under commercial cover to recruit Vladimir Putin's moneyman. Sia works for a London law firm that conceals the wealth of the superrich. Max's family business in Mexico—a CIA front since the 1960s—is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple to target Vadim, Putin's private banker, and his wife, Anna, who—unbeknownst to CIA—is a Russian intelligence officer under deep cover at the bank. As they descend further into a Russian world dripping with luxury and rife with gangland violence, Sia and Max's only hope may be Anna, who is playing a game of her own. Careening between the horse ranch in northern Mexico, the corridors of Langley, and the dark opulence of Putin's Russia, Moscow X is both a gripping thriller of modern espionage and a raw, unsparing commentary on the nature...

Welcome to Beach Bummers on the white quartz shores of Santa Maria Island, Florida, where the weather is always perfect, drinks are served ice cold, and the locals' secrets run deep! If you love the idea of escaping to a small beach town and sleuthing alongside quirky characters, you'll love the Tiki Trouble series! Zoey Zastrow needed a fresh start after her plans for a perfect life came crashing down. So she packed her bags, trading her snow boots and ice scraper in the freezing Midwest for flip flips and a waitress apron by the sunny Gulf of Mexico. She never imagined her new lifestyle would include amateur sleuthing. But there she was, killing it. Or rather, hunting down a killer. After Zoey discovers a human skull while closing the tiki bar one night, she's determined to unearth the mystery behind the discarded remains. Who was the woman? Was she murdered? And why is someone warning her not to get involved? With the help of the...

Through the life of a remarkable woman—based on pioneering stage director Sun Weishi (1921–1968)—this epic novel immerses us in the multifaceted history of China’s Communist Party. A powerful, insightful account from the National Book Award–winning author, who came of age during the Cultural Revolution.As a promising young actress, Sun Weishi made the critical decision to pursue her studies in Moscow—with the blessing of her influential adoptive father, Zhou Enlai, and Mao himself. The valuable insights she gained there during World War II, most notably the significance of characters' inner lives, would enable her to excel back in China, where she produced works by Chekhov and Gogol, and other socially progressive dramas, such as an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her striking career as China's first female director of modern spoken drama (Huaju) would be derailed with the advent of the...

Robert Ludlum's The Moscow VectorRober Ludlum and Patrick Larkin The #1 bestselling master of suspense and international intrigue continues to set the standard against which all other thrillers are measured with his expertly plotted, pulse-pounding Covert-One series.At an international conference in Prague, Lt. Col. Jon Smith, an Army research doctor specializing in infectious diseases—and secretly an agent attached to Covert-One—is contacted by one of his Russian colleagues. Dr. Valentine Petrenko is concerned about some unexplained deaths in Moscow, and the government’s refusal to go public with any information about the outbreak. When the two meet, they are attacked by a group of mysterious men. Petrenko is killed, and his notes and medical samples are lost. Smith barely escapes with his life.Meanwhile, a series of government officials around the world are coming down with a fast-acting virus with a 100% fatality rate. These deaths are somehow related to the increasing militarism from the new Russian government, headed by the autocratic and ambitious President Victor Dudarev. With few clues and precious little time, Smith and Covert-One must unravel this vicious plot and find who—or what—is at the center of it all. Before it’s too late... ReviewPRAISE FOR #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR ROBERT LUDLUMand his explosive bestsellers...“Ludlum is light years beyond his literary competition in piling plot twist upon plot twist, until the mesmerized reader is held captive...[He] dominates the field in strong, tightly plotted, adventure-drenched thrillers. Ludlum pulls out all the stops and dazzles his readers.”—Chicago Tribune”Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six pack of thriller writers combined.”—The New York Times“Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film.”—Entertainment Weekly“Welcome to Robert Ludlum's world...fast pacing, tight plotting, international intrigue.”—The Plain Dealer“Robert Ludlum is the master of gripping, fast-moving intrigue. He is unsurpassed at weaving a tapestry of stunningly diverse figures, then assembling them in a sequence so gripping that the reader's attention never wavers.”—The Daily Oklahoman“Don’t ever begin a Ludlum novel if you have to go to work the next day.”—Chicago Sun-Times”If a Pulitzer Prize were awarded for escapist fiction, Robert Ludlum undoubtedly would have won it. Ten times over.”—Mobile Register“An exciting medical-military thriller that moves at a rapid pace to its climax...an exciting new series.”—Midwest Book Review“A pop hit...that should bounce right up the bestseller lists.”—Kirkus Reviews“Gripping...robust writing and a breakneck pace.”—Boston HeraldFrom the Back CoverThe #1 bestselling master of suspense and international intrigue continues to set the standard against which all other thrillers are measured with his expertly plotted, pulse-pounding Covert-One series.THE MOSCOW VECTORAt an international conference in Prague, Lt. Col. Jon Smith, an Army research doctor specializing in infectious diseases—and secretly an agent attached to Covert-One—is contacted by one of his Russian colleagues. Dr. Valentine Petrenko is concerned about some unexplained deaths in Moscow, and the government’s refusal to go public with any information about the outbreak. When the two meet, they are attacked by a group of mysterious men. Petrenko is killed, and his notes and medical samples are lost. Smith barely escapes with his life.“Reading a ludlum novel is like watching a james bond film... slickly paced...all-consuming.”—Entertainment WeeklyMeanwhile, a series of government officials around the world are coming down with a fast-acting virus with a 100% fatality rate. These deaths are somehow related to the increasing militarism from the new Russian government, headed by the autocratic and ambitious President Victor Dudarev. With few clues and precious little time, Smith and Covert-One must unravel this vicious plot and find who—or what—is at the center of it all. Before it’s too late...

'A rollicking cultural adventure... fascinating and true' Grayson PerryThis funny and personal memoir is the account of an audacious attempt by James Birch, a young British curator, to mount the ground-breaking retrospective of Francis Bacon's work at the newly refurbished Central House of Artists, Moscow in 1988. Side-lined by the British establishment, Birch found himself at the heart of a honey-trap and the focus for a picaresque cast of Soviet officials, attachés and politicians under the forbidding eye of the KGB as he attempted to bring an unseen western cultural icon to Russia during the time of 'Glasnost', just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.Bacon in Moscow is the story of the evolution of an exhibition that was at the artistic and political heart of a sea of change that culminated with the fall of the USSR. 'A rollicking cultural adventure before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the meteoric rise of contemporary art in the nineties' Grayson...

An invitation from an old friend draws Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy . . .On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell.But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark.In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core.Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences.With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?

The Beast is back in Dubna. Let the obsession begin. Finished with the Italian and home in his motherland, Vaslav Pashkov should be happy to isolate away in his safe and private hills. But the unfortunate detail of unfinished business with his dead friend drags him back to the city and puts Vera Avdonin straight into his waiting hands yet again. Every meddling step he takes into her life only drags her closer to him whether she likes it or not. Somebody's bound to notice, so how much will they pay? Welcome to Russia—while here, you will play by his rules. * The Lies Between Lovers is Part Two of Vera and Vaslav's story in The Beast of Moscow Saga. It should only be read after Part One. 

From "quite possibly the best historical novelist we have" (Philadelphia Inquirer), the fourth Joe Wilderness spy thriller, moving from Red Scare-era Washington, D.C. to a KGB prison near Moscow's KremlinIn Moscow Exile, John Lawton departs from his usual stomping grounds of England and Germany to jump across the Atlantic to Washington, D.C., in the fragile postwar period where the Red Scare is growing noisier every day. Charlotte is a British expatriate who has recently settled in the nation's capital with her second husband, a man who looks intriguingly like Clark Gable, but her enviable dinner parties and soirées aren't the only things she is planning. Meanwhile, Charlie Leigh-Hunt has been posted to Washington as a replacement for Guy Burgess, last seen disappearing around the corner and into the Soviet Union. Charlie is soon shocked to cross paths with Charlotte, an old flame of his, who, thanks to all her gossipy parties, has a...

Pinot Noir (An International Banking Spy Thriller)

Vampires Aaron and Michelle have landed in Moscow, on the prowl. In the company of a misfit pack of mercenary werewolves and Urvashi, a fallen angel, the vampires are forced into the violent, decadent underworld of Russian mafia, drugs and blood slaves. This time the hunters have become the hunted. Dmitri, a Russian vampire billionaire, sends his mafia hit men to the streets, gunning for the wolf pack. Now they must bring the fight to Dmitri and face the ultimate battle for survival. Experience the violent, sensual underbelly of Nightlife Moscow, as Aaron and Michelle mix up a wicked blend of sex, chaos, mayhem, and vengeance. Get your copy of the latest urban fantasy – paranormal suspense novel from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Travis Luedke.

In this action-packed thriller, an invitation from an old friend draws Private Investigative agency founder Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy.  On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark.In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core. Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences. With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?

Venichka Erofeev (Venya), cultured alcoholic, self-mocking intellectual, regales us with an account of his heroic odyssey from Moscow to provincial Petushki. Stories of his rich, turbulent inner life abound as he staggers through Brezhnev's Moscow and encounters dangerous, eccentric and often hilarious strangers on a train. His journey ends when fate cruelly intervenes curtailing the vivid panorama of Russian life that we have seen through Venya's eyes. Stephen Mulrine's adaptation for one actor of Erofeev's cult novel has been highly acclaimed on BBC Radio 3, at the Edinburgh Festival, London's West End, and New York in Tom Courtenay's blissfully funny performance.

As Russia invades Ukraine and the world holds its breath, Zeb Carter attempts the impossible.Elena Zakharova, a world-renowned Russian journalist plans to publish the biggest scoop of her career. A news report that could change the course of the war.And then she goes missing.With Russia threatening a wider military conflict and a nuclear war, there is only way to contain or defuse it.Send Zeb Carter and his team to find her.The stakes are so high that failure is not an option.For Zeb's enemies, the rewards are so huge that they will not let him succeed.'Ty Patterson is a master storyteller who is up there with Lee Child, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, David Baldacci and Gregg Hurwitz'

MOST ANTICIPATED NOVEL OF SUMMER 2021 ACCORDING TO BUSTLE, BUZZFEED, AND SHEREADS! The New York Times bestselling author of Her Last Flight returns with a gripping and profoundly human story of Cold War espionage and family devotion. In the autumn of 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family’s sensational disappearance. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets? Four years later, Ruth Macallister receives a postcard from the twin sister she hasn’t seen since their catastrophic parting in Rome in the summer of 1940, as war engulfed the continent and Iris fell desperately in love with an enigmatic United States Embassy official named Sasha Digby. Within days, Ruth is on her way to Moscow, posing as the wife of counterintelligence agent Sumner Fox in a precarious plot to extract the Digbys from behind the Iron Curtain. But the complex truth behind Iris’s marriage defies Ruth’s understanding, and as the sisters race toward safety, a dogged Soviet KGB officer forces them to make a heartbreaking choice between two irreconcilable loyalties.

Journey into the heart of 20th Century Russia in this fun and funny historical mystery, perfect for fans of Verity Bright and Helena Dixon.1918 MoscowWill following her heart mean losing her head? It could mean losing her job.Fiona Figg trails her nemesis Fredrick Fredricks to Moscow. But when she arrives at the grand Metropol Hotel, the bounder has vanished.After Fiona doesn't show up for work at the War Office, Kitty Lane raises a red flag and tracks her to Russia. Seeking haven at the British Embassy, Kitty and Fiona become embroiled in a plot to overthrow the Bolshevik government.But the plot turns deadly when Fiona goes undercover as a governess in the household of Iron Viktor, the Bolsheviks' Head of Secret Police. And when Viktor turns up dead in his study, Fiona finds herself wanted for murder and on the lam.Can Fiona and Kitty find the real killer and escape the Kremlin before it's too...

'An unmissable, breakneck ride into Moscow's dark underworld' James Swallow, bestselling author of Nomad'Great action sequences . . . breathtaking twists and turns' Anthony Horowitz, bestselling author of Magpie Murders'The first Private outing for couple of years, but it's been well worth the wait' Keighley News'There's enough action, adventure and excitement to fill two chunky blockbusters in Private Moscow which makes for an exhilarating and totally satisfying read.' NB Magazine'Exhilarating, high-stakes action set in sub-zero temperatures, but so fast-paced you won't have time to feel the chill!' Lesley Kara, bestselling author of The Rumour_____________________________THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERAn invitation from an old friend draws Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy . . .On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside...

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **The extraordinary new Gabriel Allon novel from the “gold standard” (*The Dallas Morning News*) of thriller writers**. Over the course of ten previous novels, Daniel Silva has established himself as one of the world’s finest writers of international intrigue and espionage— “a worthy successor to such legends as Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré” (*Chicago Sun-Times*)—and Gabriel Allon as “one of the most intriguing heroes of any thriller series” (*The Philadelphia Inquirer*). Now the death of a journalist leads Allon to Russia, where he finds that, in terms of spycraft, even he has something to learn. He’s playing by Moscow rules now. This is not the grim, gray Moscow of Soviet times but a new Moscow, awash in oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. A Moscow where power resides once more behind the walls of the Kremlin and where critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. A Moscow where a new generation of Stalinists is plotting to reclaim an empire lost and to challenge the global dominance of its old enemy, the United States. One such man is Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who built a global investment empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Hidden within that empire, however, is a more lucrative and deadly business: Kharkov is an arms dealer—and he is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al- Qaeda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11—and the clock is ticking fast. Filled with rich prose and breathtaking turns of plot, *Moscow Rules* is at once superior entertainment and a searing cautionary tale about the new threats rising to the East—and Silva’s finest novel yet.

Clever, cunning and highly skilled—there's only one Bianca St. Ives and don't you dare forget itBianca St. Ives was recently put through the wringer, but she came out the same way she always does—the way her father trained her to—hungry for a fight. Still navigating the fallout from a shocking revelation that's left a network of assassins' crosshairs trained on her, Bianca's ready to take fate into her own hands. It's kill or be killed, and she's got her finger flush against the trigger.But as Bianca races to outmaneuver her tireless pursuers, her father loops her in on a job that might just do the trick: recover King Priam's Treasure, a collection of heavily guarded, priceless artifacts stolen by the Russians during World War II, and return it to Germany. Impossible? Maybe for some, but a high-risk heist is all in a day's work for Bianca St. Ives, especially when there's intel on the line—intel that could finally bring down the...

Gripping narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic story of a remarkable young Texan pianist, Van Cliburn, who played his way through the wall of fear built by the Cold War, won the hearts of the American and Russian people, and eased tensions between two superpowers on the brink of nuclear war.In 1958, an unheralded twenty-three-year-old piano prodigy from Texas named Van Cliburn traveled to Moscow to compete in the First International Tchaikovsky Competition. The Soviets had no intention of bestowing their coveted prize on an unknown American; a Russian pianist had already been chosen to win. Yet when the gangly Texan with the shy grin took the stage and began to play, he instantly captivated an entire nation. The Soviet people were charmed by Van Cliburn's extraordinary talent, passion, and fresh-faced innocence, but it was his palpable love for the music that earned their devotion; for many, he played more like a Russian than their own musicians. As...

When Finn, a former British spy, is poisoned by a Russian assassin, his ex-boss Adrian, the chief of MI6, wants vengeance. He also wants answers—information that only Finn’s widow knows. But Anna, a former KGB colonel who betrayed her country for love, vanished with her child shortly after Finn’s death. Adrian isn’t the only one eager to find Anna. Finn accessed intelligence so sensitive that the KGB killed to protect it—and now Anna is in the KGB’s crosshairs, as the only person who knows the true identity of the Kremlin insider, superspy, and double agent called Mikhail. The CIA and Cougar, a giant American private intelligence company, are also hunting her. With the Kremlin still in the grasp of all-powerful Vladimir Putin, Mikhail is the West’s best hope for revealing Russia’s obscure intentions for its newfound oil wealth. Anna holds the key to the secrets of her motherland, and now the former Russian agent faces her greatest test. To secure her freedom and protect her child, she must uncover the full truth before anyone else does—even as friend and foe set her in their sights. Moving from Paris to New York, from the Kremlin to the American Southwest, Moscow Sting is an absorbing and timely tale of intrigue, betrayal, fatal lies, and complex truths, told with the authentic detail and chilling insight of an experienced insider.

Responsible for cleaning the homes of the rich, Mrs Harris is a humble charlady with a knack for putting things in order wherever she goes. When, much to her surprise, she wins a trip for two beyond the Iron Curtain, she has no idea of the adventure that lies ahead of her. Ever the loyal servant, however, Mrs Harris (accompanied by her loyal friend Mrs Butterfield) believes it only right that others benefit from her good fortune as well. With a mink coat in mind for Mrs Butterfield, she also hopes to use their 'oliday to reignite a lost romance between her lovelorn employer and a Russian woman he had loved years ago. Unfortunately, the discreet passing of documents is an activity which can land even the most well-intentioned charlady in hot water with the KGB...

The ISIS Project is historically inspired fiction. The characters in this, the second of an intended five part series are wholly the product of my imagination. The newspapers and features cited in this work are also fictional, any non-fictional references are cited by source. It is alleged by various and sundry criminologists that there are over thirty Russian Crime Syndicates in the United States centered in every major city including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. As crime festers in an environment where individual freedom is suppressed, only time will tell to what extent the Russian Mafyia will influence the American lifestyle and economy.

The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking “bulldozer,” wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt, carried out by hardline communists, shook Gorbachev’s authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before the Soviet Union collapsed and the day arrived when Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin, and move in as ruler of Russia. Conor O’Clery has written a unique and truly suspenseful thriller of the day the Soviet Union died. The internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future are worthy of John Le Carré or Alan Furst. The Cold War’s last act was a magnificent dark drama played out in the shadows of the Kremlin.

A sharply observed novel about an individual and the city that shapes him in the vein of Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, Back to Moscow is distinctive, dazzling, witty and ultimately haunting. Months after his arrival in Moscow, doctoral student Martin hasn't written a word of his thesis on Russian literature because, for him and his dissolute friends, the cheap, bright lure of nightclubs, vodka and women is predictably hard to resist. At the end of the 1990s, the city is a chaotic metropolis storming into the twenty-first century in the midst of social and political turmoil - the grim old Soviet certainties are fading as money and the new elites rise to power. Martin finds himself torn between opposing sensibilities: on the one hand, the clean, limpid beauty of Lena, whom he meets at Propaganda, and her insistence on the Mysterious Russian Soul; on the other, his research supervisor Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, trapped in the long shadow of a Soviet past. ...

Everyone has heard of the KGB, but little has been published about is 'daughter' organisations through which Moscow terrorised the satellite states grabbed by Stalin during and after the Second World War. Staffed by Moscow-trained nationals closely monitored by KGB 'ambassadors', Poland's UB, the Czech StB, the Hungarian AVH, Romania's Securitate, Bulgaria's KDS and the ultra-Stalinist Stasi of the German Democratic Republic all repressed democratic movements in their respective countries for forty years. They arrested and imprisoned without trial anyone not toeing the Moscow line, earning the hatred of their compatriots. When this boiled over - in GDR 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968 - Russian troops and tanks mowed down unarmed protestors. The 'daughters' also carried out espionage and mokrye dyela assassinations for Moscow in Britain and other Western countries, such as the murder of Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov on Waterloo Bridge in 1978, and occasionally hired professional hit men, including the notorious assassin Carlos the Jackal. Historian and author Douglas Boyd explores for the first time the relationship between the KGB and its ghastly brood of 'daughters' - a true family from hell.

1,000 MILES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN, HE STOOD FOR FREEDOM The #1 bestselling author and award-winning anchor of the #1 rated Special Report with Bret Baier reveals as never before Reagan's dramatic battle to win the Cold War.In his acclaimed bestseller Three Days in January, Bret Baier illuminated the extraordinary leadership of President Dwight Eisenhower at the dawn of the Cold War. Now in his highly anticipated new history, Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the dramatic endgame of America's long struggle with the Soviet Union and President Ronald Reagan's central role in shaping the world we live in today.On May 31, 1988, Reagan stood on Russian soil and addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University, delivering a remarkable—yet now largely forgotten—speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital. This fourth in a series of summits between Reagan and Soviet General...

Moscow Diary is thediary kept by Marjorie Farquharson during the period in which she establishedAmnesty International's Information Office in Moscow, a unique venture during afascinating period of change. In 1991, Marjorie was the first westerner working on human rights with apermanent base. It was particularly important because for years the USSR hadconsidered Amnesty an anti-Soviet organisation - "a nest of spies" so to speak. Marjorie's role together with her penetrating perceptionsand her entertaining style of writing make this a very interesting accountwhich combines insights into the politics of human rights and into theunusually wide range of people Marjorie encountered. Most westerners in Moscowlived a life apart with access to foreign currency shops and good-quality food.Marjorie chose instead to live as an ordinary Muscovite, in one room with asmall kitchen, even when, in 1992, the inflation rate in Russia soared to morethan 2000%....

Charlie, a brilliant analyst for the CIA predicts a coup in the U.S.S.R. He finds links to his family history and becomes involved in a nightmare of violence and paranoia

Victim in the VineyardJessica Fletcher is visiting the Napa Valley wine country while doing research for her next book, and invites her old friend, Scotland Yard detective George Sutherland to join her at a cozy Bed and Breakfast. No sooner do they arri

For fans of Spooks, Homeland, McMafia and The Night Manager, the latest thriller in Stella Rimington's bestselling espionage series sees Liz Carlyle investigating a sinister Russian plot – tense, gripping and global in scopeA man lies dying in a hospital in upstate Vermont. The nurses know only that he is an academic at a nearby university but they have been instructed to call the FBI should anyone visit their patient. News of this suspected Russian illegal soon reaches MI5 in London where Liz Carlyle has been contacted by a top secret source known as Mischa who is requesting a clandestine rendezvous in Berlin. Meanwhile in Brussels a Russian sleeper agent who has lived undercover for years is beginning to question his role, while suspicions have been roused about a boarding school in Suffolk that has recently changed hands in mysterious circumstances. The latest expertly-plotted thriller...

Decorated current CIA analyst Mark Henshaw continues the Red Cell series with an "authentic, compelling, and revealing" (Jason Matthews) thriller following CIA analyst Jonathan Burke and agent Kyra Stryker, as they try to save the CIA's sources in Russia after a major intelligence breach leaves Moscow Station in ruins.When a body with Russian military tattoos is found floating in a lake outside Berlin, the CIA immediately takes notice. The body is identified as the director of Russia's Foundation for Advanced Nuclear Research, who is also a CIA asset. And the murder coincides with the defection of one of the CIA's upper-level officers. Alden Maines, is jaded after years in the CIA cleaning up the messes of incompetent political appointees in dangerous foreign posts. When he is passed over for promotion, Maines crosses the Rubicon and decides to cash in as a double agent for Russia. But while Maines dreams of off-shore bank accounts and a new secret life,...

Russian scientists have perfected a virus that will make them the top players in the deadly game of germ warfare. But there is a big problem: it's been stolen. Only when the Soviets realize their deadly secret can be used against their own people do they alert Western leaders. Phoenix Force is ordered to help the KGB recover — and destroy — the formula. Without knowing who is friend or foe, the Force travels from the hills of central Asia to the crowded streets of Hong Kong. If the formula isn't found, few will be left to mourn the dead.

In Moscow, the truth can be a dangerous commodity. Ottawa bureaucrat–turned-diplomat Charlie Hillier is back. Having barely survived his first posting in Havana, Charlie is eager to put what he learned there to good use. And it isn't long before he's thrust into a fresh case — a technical writer from Toronto in jail on dubious drug charges. Charlie has barely put a dent in the brick wall that is the Russian legal system when the jailed man turns up dead, the official explanation: suicide. And just when evidence to the contrary is discovered, the body is "accidentally" cremated by the authorities. Undeterred by bureaucratic stonewalling and determined to help the victim's sister get to the bottom of her brother's death, Charlie follows the sparse clues available. But what he uncovers brings them both far too close to powers more dangerous than they could have imagined. Suddenly, getting at the truth is less important than getting out of Russia in one piece.

In 1945, Stalin imprisoned a team of Nazi scientists and forced them to think beyond the nuke. Now seven decades later, they are finally ready. A Russian President cornered by sanctions and a Russian Analyst unencumbered by legacies team up to revive Russia's past glory. Thinking beyond the nuke, the duo unleash a Russian roulette of international intrigue and tomfoolery. Fans of Dr. Strangelove, Burn after Reading and Johnny English may enjoy this macabre medley of errors. **

Sedia (According to Crow) applies urban fantasy templates to her Russian setting with mixed success in her second stand-alone novel. Masha, the cheerfully normal sister of vision-prone translator Galina, turns into a jackdaw and flies off, leaving her just-born child behind. Joined by police detective Yakov Richards, Galina tracks the missing Masha into an underground milieu where lost souls mingle with beings out of Russian folklore. A host of secondary characters rapidly clutter the narrative and cloud its focus, and Sedia's persistently curt prose favors contemporary atmosphere over mythic resonance, diminishing Koschey the Deathless and Zemun the Celestial Cow to near-mundane status. Modern blue-collar Moscow is pitch-perfect, however: bustling yet seedy, disorganized and none too respectable. While undeniably authentic, the cynical tone may alienate many Western readers before they reach the startling but well-grounded climax. On the whole, this wholeheartedly Russian tale is most compelling as social commentary.

"The book moves briskly from one crisp scene to the next, and ultimately casts a spell as captivating as Rules of Civility, a book that inhales you into its seductively Gatsby-esque universe." —Town & CountryFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, "Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change." A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an...

A personal and revealing perspective of Russia by the acclaimed former BBC and Sunday Times Moscow correspondent, who worked in Russia for over 30 years and who witnessed first-hand the darkest days of communism and the rise of PutinIn the course of the past forty-five years, Angus Roxburgh has translated Tolstoy, met three successive Russian presidents and been jinxed by a Siberian shaman. He has come under fire in war zones and been arrested by Chechen thugs. He was wooed by the KGB, who then decided he would make a lousy spy and expelled him from the country. In Moscow Calling Roxburgh presents his Russia - not the Russia of news reports, but a quirky, crazy, exasperating, beautiful, tumultuous world that in forty years has changed completely, and yet not at all. From the dark, fearful days of communism and his adventures as a correspondent as the Soviet Union collapsed into chaos, to his frustrating work as a media consultant in Putin's Kremlin,...

The more you watch Moscow, the more it looks like a huge chameleon that keeps changing its face—and it isn’t always pretty. Following Akashic Books’ international success with London Noir , Delhi Noir , Paris Noir , and others, the Noir series explores this fabled and troubled city’s darkest recesses. Features brand-new stories by: Alexander Anuchkin, Igor Zotov, Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Tuchkov, Anna Starobinets, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Evdokimov, Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Maxim Maximov, Irina Denezhkina, Dmitry Kosyrev, Andrei Khusnutdinov, and Sergei Kuznetsov. Natalia Smirnova was born in 1978 in Moscow. In 2006, together with Julia Goumen, she founded Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency, representing Russian authors worldwide. Julia Goumen was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1977. She holds a PhD in English and has worked in publishing since 2001.

In late September 1993, Brooke Fielding, a thirty-eight-year-old New York investment manager and the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors, accepts an invitation to teach entrepreneurial skills to Russian businesswomen in Moscow. Though excited by the opportunity to be one of the first Americans to visit Russia after the fall of communism, she wonders what awaits her in the country that persecuted her mother just a generation ago. But as the Russian parliament's uprising against President Boris Yeltsin turns Moscow into a volatile war zone, Brooke finds that her involvement comes at a high cost. For in a city where "capitalism" is still a dirty word, where neighbors spy on neighbors and the new economy is in the hands of a few dangerous men, nothing Brooke does goes unnoticed—and a mistake in her past may now compromise her future.

On August 4, 1941, a plane took off from Novy Borrisov, ran into a thunderstorm, and crash-landed at Rastenberg. Among those on board was the Fuehrer of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler. And during the next six months, while Hitler lay in a deep coma at his retreat in Berchtesgaden, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering ordered the German army to advance directly on Moscow and capture the city. So begins a work of fiction so plausible in its linkage of real events—and yet so frightening in its depiction of their outcome—that World War II may never be quite the same again. With Hitler out of action, Goering sets the German war machine loose on Russia at a critical turning point of the fighting. Rommel had taken Egypt, and German forces were on their way to meet Japanese in the Middle East. With Britain deprived of its oil, Winston Churchill’s image begins to blacken, and his country may be driven out of the war completely. Meanwhile, the Japanese make their most daring move to date: an all-out attack on California. With bombs dropping on Hollywood and German troops in the Kremlin. THE MOSCOW OPTION is an extraordinary picture of the war that never was, and of the nightmare that might have been.

The first short story collection by award-winning author Ekaterina Sedia! One of the more resonant voices to emerge in recent years, this Russian-born author explores the edge between the mundane and fantastical in tales inspired by her homeland as well as worldwide folkloric traditions. With foreword by World Fantasy Award-winner Jeffrey Ford, Moscow But Dreaming showcases singular and lyrical writing that will appeal to fans of slipstream and magical realism, as well as those interested in the uncanny and Russian history.

Mack Bolan agrees to bury the hatchet with the CIA to help an imperiled Company mole in Moscow. Under official U.S. sanction the Executioner penetrates the Kremlin with a personal vendetta in mind. Bolan ends the blood fued when he buries the hatchet deeper than anyone expects: right into the heart of the troubled KGB high command.

Praise for The Moscow Affair: "A dangerously elegant man and a beautiful young woman take on the evils of the international sex trade. Throw in a dynamite love story and you have sizzling romantic suspense at its best." –J. John"From the Russian Mafia to high level political intrigue this book captures the reader with the power and immediacy of today's riveting headlines." –David AdamsOn a mission to find three kidnapped girls, the team of international security agents use one of their own as bait; A move as daring as it is dangerous." –Action JunkieHer father's sins; her lover's crimeTheir dangerous past comes back to threaten herOnly their cunning and bravery overcome the evil men out to wreak their revenge"A spellbinding suspense filled international adventure coupled with a sizzling SEXY romance. Yum!" –Sneaky Romance ReaderLove Kaylea Cross's heart pounding romantic military thrillers? Lisa Jackson's red hot romance? Maya...

The raucous and surprisingly poignant story of a young, Russia-obsessed American writer and comedian who embarked on a solo tour of the former Soviet Republics, never imagining that it would involve kidnappers, garbage bags of money, and encounters with the weird and wonderful from Mongolia to Tajikistan.Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Siberia are not the typical tourist destinations of a twenty-something, nor the places one usually goes to eat, pray, and/or love. But the mix of imperial Russian opulence and Soviet decay, and the allure of emotionally unavailable Russian men proved strangely irresistible to comedian Audrey Murray.At age twenty-eight, while her friends were settling into corporate jobs and serious relationships, Audrey was on a one-way flight to Kazakhstan, the first leg of a nine-month solo voyage through the former USSR. A blend of memoir and offbeat travel guide (black markets in Uzbekistan: 5 stars; getting kidnapped in Turkmenistan: 1 star) this...

The Complete Fugitive Archives (Project Berlin, The Moscow Meeting, The Buried Cities) (Endgame: The

At an international conference in Prague, Lt. Col. Jon Smith, an Army research doctor specializing in infectious diseases and secretly an agent attached to Covert-One, is contacted by a Russian colleague, Dr. Valentine Petrenko. Petrenko is concerned about a small cluster of mysterious deaths in Moscow and about the Russian government’s refusal to release publicly any information or data on the outbreak. When the two meet, they are attacked by a group of mysterious men and Petrenko is killed. His notes and medical samples are lost, and Smith barely escapes with his life. At the same time, a series of government officials around the world are coming down with a mysterious, fast-acting virus with a 100 % fatality rate. These deaths are somehow related to the increasing militarism from the new Russian government, headed by the autocratic and ambitious President Victor Dudarev. With few clues and precious little time, Smith and Covert-One must unravel this mysterious plot and find the mysterious figure who stands at the center of it all.