Spy Games

In a world of lies, one man wants the truth. Journalist Philip Mangan is trying to stay out of trouble in East Africa, his reputation and his life in tatters. But when he is caught in a terrorist attack in East Africa and a shadowy Chinese figure approaches him in the dead of night with information on the origins of the attack, Mangan is suddenly back in the eye of the storm. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on a humid Hong Kong night, a key British Intelligence source is murdered minutes after meeting spy Trish Patterson. From Washington, D.C. to the hallowed halls of Oxford University and dusty African streets, a sinister power is stirring, one which will use Mangan and Patterson as pawns -- if they survive. Deeply steeped in tension and paranoia, Adam Brookes's second novel is a remarkable, groundbreaking spy thriller.

Combining the wit of Janet Evanovich and the intrigue of Cherry Adair, Gina Robinson introduces a sizzling couple who find themselves. . . Sleepless In Seattle Reilly Peterson's been many things in her thirty-two years: an athlete, a model, a sportswear executive. Her ex-boyfriend, however, has done a good job of making Reilly something she's never been--scared. Now Reilly's ready to protect herself with more than her sharp tongue. Fantasy Spy Camp's Seattle-based Urban Ops division will train her to survive using everything from her bare hands to a submachine gun. But when she gets an eyeful of fellow camper Van Keller, all Reilly wants is to chill out, partner up, and go deep undercover... Praise for Spy Candy: "Sassy and delightfully entertaining." --Beverly Barton, New York Times bestselling author "With the perfect amount of suspense and humor, this story will stay with readers long after the book is over."--Romantic Times "Fast, snappy and cute." --Susan Andersen, New York Times bestselling author

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the main drivers of clandestine activity have been wars, crime, and international espionage. The need to obtain and pass along secret information exists so that one group can gain dominance over another, whether through victory in conflicts, seizure of land, or stealing money. Spies may be a constant, but so are the code breakers, those hardworking heroes who use their intelligence and drive to overcome whatever challenges arise from enemies or thieves. This comprehensive collection of New York Times coverage gives a behind-the-scenes look at the high stakes drama created by dangerous secrets, with media literacy terms and questions included to further draw readers in.

As most long-standing news outlets have shuttered their foreign bureaus and print operations, the role of GNNs as information collectors and policy influencers has changed in tandem. Western GNNs are honored for being untethered to government entities and their ability to produce accurate yet critical situational analyses. However, with the emergence of non-Western GNNs and their direct relationships to the state, the independent nature of our global news cycle has been vastly manipulated. In Spin Wars and Spy Games, Kounalakis uses his interviews with an expansive and diverse set of GNN professionals to deliver a vivid depiction of the momentous sea change in mass media production. He traces the evolution of global news networks from the twentieth century to now, revealing today’s drastically altered news business model that places precedence on networks leveraging global power. This eye-opening narrative transforms our understanding of why countries like Russia and China invest heavily in their news media, and how the GNN framework operates in conjunction with state strategy and diplomatic sensitivity. Profoundly meticulous and insightful, this seminal work on the current state of transnational journalism gives readers a first-hand look at how global media powers shape policy and morph the public’s consumption of information.

Set in China, and ripped from today's headlines, comes a pulse-pounding debut that reinvents the spy thriller for the 21st century. A lone man, Peanut, escapes a labor camp in the dead of night, fleeing across the winter desert of north-west China. Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British; now Peanut must disappear on Beijing's surveillance-blanketed streets. Desperate and ruthless, he reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via crusading journalist Philip Mangan, offering military secrets in return for extraction. But the secrets prove more valuable than Peanut or Mangan could ever have known. . . and not only to the British.

Don't miss Georgina Harding's newest novel "The Painter of Silence" available in September, 2012. It is 1961, and the world is in black and white. Eight-year-old Anna watches the Cold War unfold on her television set and builds precarious houses of cards on the sitting-room carpet. Her older brother Peter glues together German bombers and hangs them from his bedroom ceiling, while their mother brightly bosses him to go outside to play. Then, one stingingly cold morning made indistinct by the freezing fog, the world changes. A kiss that barely touches Anna's cheek, a rumble of exhaust and a blurred wave through an icy windscreen, and her mother is gone. Anna and Peter do not attend the funeral. Their father, ever evasive, remains gentle but distant, absorbed always in quietly tending his garden, burying his grief. Life returns to normal: Anna goes to school, practises her scales, doesn't ask questions. But Peter will not let go of a fierce conviction that Karoline is still alive. Fascinated by the daily tales of espionage in the newspapers, he constructs a theory that their mother, German by birth, was a spy working under the cover of perfect post-war domesticity. And as Anna examines her mother's image, a blandly pretty studio portrait of post-war New Look woman, the many possibilities of who she might have been refract and scatter like coloured light through glass.

February 1981. The Cold War is in full swing. Richard Brodick decides to follow in his father's footsteps and seeks an exciting role in what used to be called the Great Game, only to find that it turns out to be less of an adventure and more brutal betrayal. As a contract 'head agent' for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service based in Pakistan, Brodick's job is to train Afghans to capture video of the war against the Soviets. He is expected to follow orders, toe the line, keep Mrs T happy back in London. However, what he finds on the ground-in both Pakistan and Afghanistan-is a murky world of blurred lines and conflicting stories. He quickly realises he cannot trust anything he has been told, by anyone. What he had thought would be an adventure spying on the Soviets and their Afghan communist allies turns sour when he's ordered to kill his best friend. Will he betray his country or his friend? What side will he choose? "The mystery is why there aren't more books as good as this. The answer is very few of us have been to places as dark as this... John Fullerton has." Martin Cruz Smith (The Monkey House)

King Lear, one of Shakespeare's darkest and most savage plays, tells the story of the foolish and Job-like Lear, who divides his kingdom, as he does his affections, according to vanity and whim. Lear's failure as a father engulfs himself and his world in turmoil and tragedy. He changes from king to beggar, and finally, to man, in a pattern of loss and discovery which reflects the archetype of tragic wisdom.