Hostile Intent

Clive Egleton, Britain's leading thriller writer, captures the current political scene in this post-cold war thriller, where the rules have changed, nuclear menace has merely gone underground, and the world's secrets are up for grabs. It is spring of 1991 when a minor British official trading low-grade information with Galina Kutuzova (who appears to be an equally minor Russian informant) is blown up in a neo-Nazi riot in Dresden. To the British government it is a small affair, and Peter Ashton, a mid-ranking and always dependable agent, is asked to arrive at the acceptable explanation that it was a random accident. But after a nearly lethal trip to Leningrad and Moscow, Ashton believes that the suddenly elusive Galina has defected to America - and that silencing her is high on the Russians' list of priorities. To convince the British Foreign Office and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Ashton hatches a plan that puts him at extreme personal and professional risk - and at the same time pursues Galina, who must know too much to have fled so far. With gut-wrenching suspense and clear-ringing authenticity, Clive Egleton tightens suspense like a slipknot as American and British agents converge at a Rocky Mountain safe house to pay back the KGB for five decades of hostile intent.