Historical Mystery Spy

1997. Amy Novak has lost the two great loves in her life: her husband, Michael, and her first love, music. With the first anniversary of Michael's death approaching, Amy buries herself in her job as an archivist. And when a newly declassified file lands on her desk, she is astonished to uncover proof that Agent 'Colette' existed—a name spoken only in whispers; an identity so secret that it has never been verified.

Critics and fans alike welcomed the return of the "shrewd, sharp, rousing" (Kirkus Reviews) Men at War series. Now, Dick Canidy and colleagues in the Office of Strategic Services face an even greater task - to convince Hitler and the Axis powers that the invasion of the European continent will take place anywhere but on the beaches of Nazi-occupied France. "Wild Bill" Donovan’s men have several tactics in mind, but some of the people they must use are not the most reliable, so the deceptions require layer upon layer of intrigue.

À Paris, un ministre franc-maçon est retrouvé prostré dans ses appartements à côté du cadavre de sa maîtresse qu'il a follement aimée. Sur son visage, la morte arbore une étrange expression d'extase amoureuse. L'affaire est officiellement confiée au Commissaire Marcas qui va devenir la cible d'une conjuration visant à compromettre sa réputation, à le faire chasser de la police puis à le supprimer définitivement. Cette fois, les puissants ennemis de Marcas pourraient bien être des frères en maçonnerie.

Seventeen years after the fall of the Third Reich, Max Weill has never forgotten the atrocities he saw as a prisoner at Auschwitz - nor the face of Dr. Otto Schramm, a camp doctor who worked with Mengele on appalling experiments and who sent Max’s family to the gas chambers. As the war came to a close, Schramm was one of the many high-ranking former-Nazi officers who managed to escape Germany for new lives in South America, where leaders like Argentina’s Juan Perón gave them safe harbor and new identities.

England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe's last year at Cambridge, he is approached by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster offering an unorthodox career opportunity: going undercover to intercept a Catholic plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots on Elizabeth's throne. Spying on Queen Mary turns out to be more than Kit bargained for, but his salary allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years he becomes the toast of London's raucous theater scene.

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna is on the move. Arkady Renko, iconic Moscow investigator and Tatiana’s part-time lover, hasn’t seen her since she left on assignment over a month ago. When she doesn’t arrive on her scheduled train, he’s positive something is wrong. No one else thinks Renko should be worried - Tatiana is known to disappear during deep assignments - but he knows her enemies all too well and the criminal lengths to which they’ll go to keep her quiet.

Lisbon, 1943: When her cover is blown, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay flees Paris. Pursued by the Gestapo, she makes her way to neutral Lisbon, where Europe’s elite rub shoulders with diplomats, businessmen, smugglers, and spies. There she receives new orders—and a new identity. Posing as wealthy French widow Solange Verin, Elisabeth must infiltrate a German espionage ring targeting Allied ships, before more British servicemen are killed. But, the closer Elisabeth comes to discovering the truth, the greater the risk grows.

Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But, in 1946, he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison...when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents. Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work.

New York, 1939 Giddy Brodsky knows she’s lucky to have a job as a cigarette girl at a Manhattan jazz club, but she dreams of opening her own beauty shop and lifting her family out of poverty. The Brodskys have lived cheek to jowl in the Lower East Side tenements since they came to America nineteen years ago, fleeing a deadly pogrom in their Russian village. But they continue to face prejudice. Yet Giddy is focused on the future—until she recognizes one of the Cossacks who irrevocably changed her life and the past comes flooding back.

For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.

Red Square, 1985. The naked body of a young man is left outside the walls of the Kremlin, frozen solid - like marble to the touch - missing the little finger from his right hand. A week later, Alex Marston, the headstrong 15-year-old daughter of the British ambassador, disappears. Army Intelligence Officer Tom Fox, posted to Moscow to keep him from telling the truth to a government committee, is asked to help find her. It's a shot at redemption.

In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived - the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.

A war-weary Navy pilot confronts the deadly skies of the South Pacific, training Marine pilots and battling Soviets MiGs in the wake of the Vietnam WarFighter pilot Jake Grafton is adrift following combat in Vietnam. With no place in the States to call home, Grafton sticks to what he knows best: taking on the world’s most treacherous skies from the cockpit of a Grumman A-6 Intruder.

Sebastian Kennett is a self-made man-passionate, adventurous, and powerful; a master trader and international shipper; a man who'll risk everything for a profit. Jess Whitby grew up on the mean streets of the East End. Her father's a fine rogue and sometime smuggler. His canny trading and her brilliant management have built them a fortune. Then one of Sebastian's ships goes down and a traitor is to blame. All the Whitbys' money won't protect Jess's father from an accusation of treason.

Occupied Munich, 1946: Irina, a Cossack refugee, confesses to murdering a GI, but American captain Harry Kaspar doesn't buy it. As Harry scours the devastated city for the truth, it leads him to his long-lost German brother, Max, who returned to Hitler's Germany before the war. Max has a questionable past, and he needs Harry for the cause that could redeem him: rescuing Irina's stranded clan of Cossacks who have been disowned by the Allies and are now being hunted by Soviet death squads - the cold-blooded upshot of a callous postwar policy.

In 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy makes a historic run for the White House. Despite concerns about his Catholicism, Kennedy’s outward charm is winning the country over, but his inner demons are putting his candidacy in danger and risk destroying his political career. That same year, Caitlin Russo, a former cop turned reporter, is devoting her skills to finding her husband’s killer. His job as a CIA operative posed its fair share of risks, but when Caitlin discovers his notes about the case that led to his death, she knows there’s more to the story than simple tragedy.

In 1972, Morgan Llywelyn tells the story of Ireland from 1950-1972 as seen through the eyes of young Barry Halloran, son and grandson of Irish revolutionaries. Northern Ireland has become a running sore, poisoning life on both sides of the Irish border. Following family tradition, at 18, Barry joins the Irish Republican Army to help complete what he sees as "the unfinished revolution". But things are no longer as clear cut as they once were.

Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system.

Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a mobster hitman known as much for his brilliant tactics as for taking only "righteous" assignments. But then Paul gets caught. And the arresting officer offers him a stark choice: prison or covert government service. Paul is asked to pose as a journalist covering the summer Olympics taking place in Berlin. He's to hunt down and kill Reinhard Ernst - the ruthless architect of Hitler's clandestine rearmament.

World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly drawn into another web of danger and intrigue.