A Hooded Crow

Glasnost may be the watchword of today, but international espionage is very much alive. That is the message of A Hooded Crow, Craig Thomas' latest virtuoso thriller, set in today's post-Gulf world of high technology, economic brinkmanship, and political upheaval.

In London, the agents once led by spymaster Sir Kenneth Aubrey are investigating the Reid Group's exports of high-tech products, which may be going illegally to the Soviets. In South Africa, a reclusive ex-spy stumbles upon a crashed plane full of British high tech-and a corpse bearing a KGB ID card. An American smuggler "commits suicide," a British agent dies-and agents Patrick Hyde and Tony Godwin, convinced that the KGB is on the move, break orders and begin a deadly international chase.

From Moscow to London, from Venice to Johannesburg, Hyde, Godwin, and the recuperating Sir Kenneth pursue a network of double agents, amoral businessmen, and mercenaries to a shattering climax in the wastelands of Namibia, the killing ground.

A Hooded Crow is Craig Thomas' masterwork, hurling us into a world in which one's deadliest enemies so not necessarily work for the opposition; where the politics are new, the hardware of destruction newer, but the tactics are as old, and as lethal, as ever.

Craig Thomas was born in Wales and educated at University College, Cardiff. He is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including THE LAST RAVEN, EMERALD DECISION, WILD CAT, WINTER HAWK, LION'S RUN, JADE TIGER, SEA LEOPARD, SNOW FALCON, WOLFSBANE, RAT TRAP, FIREFOX DOWN!, and FIREFOX. He is married and lives in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, where he is at work on a new novel.