Matthew Palmer returns with another gripping, all-too-real thriller deeply entrenched in real-world global intrigue and international politics, this time examining the world's most dangerous yet overlooked nuclear threat—war between India and Pakistan.Sam Trainor had once been a whiz kid with a bright future, but a career of overseas work coupled with a penchant for being an outspoken iconoclast has once again left him on the outside looking in. Now he's moving over from being the top South Asia expert in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence & Research to doing identical work as a contractor—for twice the pay—at Argus Systems, a Beltway Bandit consulting company with a lucrative contract to provide the federal government with intelligence and analysis on the subcontinent. But Sam soon discovers that for all their similarities, the government and private consulting companies have vastly different motives. As he struggles to adjust to a...

A riveting novel of international suspense from acclaimed author and veteran diplomat Matthew Palmer. Twenty years after the Srebrenica massacre that claimed the life of his friend and colleague, Eric Petrosian is back in Sarajevo at the American embassy, and the specter of war once again hangs over the Balkans. The Bosnian Serb leader, who had for a time been seeking a stable peace, has turned back to his nationalist roots and is threatening to pull Bosnia apart in a bloody struggle for control . . . and behind him is a shadowy mafia figure pulling the strings. As Eric is dragged deeper into the political maelstrom and uncovers a plot of blackmail and ruthless ambitions, Eric is faced with an impossible choice: use the information he's uncovered to achieve atonement for the past or use it to shape the future.

A tense, complex, and twisting diplomatic thriller in which one woman must choose between morality and compromise—and in either case, the consequences may be deadly. Katarina "Kate" Wallander is a second-generation Foreign Service officer, recently assigned to Kyrgyzstan. She's not there by chance. Kate is a Foreign Service brat who attended high school in the region; her uncle is the U.S. ambassador to the country, and he pulled a few strings to get her assigned to his mission. U.S.–Kyrgyz relations are at a critical juncture. U.S. authorities have been negotiating with the Kyrgyz president on the lease of a massive airbase that would significantly expand the American footprint in Central Asia and could tip the scale in "the Great Game," the competition among Russia, China, and the United States for influence in the region. The negotiations are controversial in the United States because of the Kyrgyz regime's abysmal human-rights record. The fate of...