TheDeceiver

Former RAF pilot and investigative journalist, Frederick Forsyth defined the modern thriller when he wrote The Day of The Jackal, described by Lee Child as ‘the book that broke the mould’, with its lightning-paced storytelling, effortlessly cool reality and unique insider information. Since then he has written twelve novels which have been bestsellers around the world: The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, Icon, Avenger, The Afghan, The Cobra and, most recently, The Kill List. He lives in Buckinghamshire, England.

Sam McCready is The Deceiver, one of the Secret Intelligence Service's most unorthodox and most valued operatives, a legend in his own time. The end of the cold war has, however, strengthened the hand of the Whitehall mandarins, to whom he seems about as controllable as Genhis Khan, so Sam is to have his fate decided at a special hearing.

As part of the proceedings, four of Sam's key operations are reviewed: a clandestine mission into East Germany in 1985 to contact the top Russian spy General Pankratin; the second involving a KGB colonel who wants to defect - but is he genuine? An audacious Qaddafi-inspired plot to ship arms to the IRA; and the fourth when McCready presided over the aftermath of political murder and mayhem in the Caribbean.

Fans will not be disappointedAnother Forsyth thriller that has you by the throat with plots so finely crafted as to make the cold war's very darkness visibleCleverly constructed . . . very readable