Veteran reporter Matt Franklin liked the thought of a trip to a warm climate in early December – he could escape the northern winter, reassess his marriage, and get the big story that would restore his byline to the front page of The New York Times. But it wouldn't have seemed such an attractive idea if he'd known he was to be drawn back into active service for the CIA and caught in the middle of a revolution. Set in the Middle East, the United States of America and the rough snowbound terrain of England's Lake District, Michael Nicholson's powerful new novel takes place over just four days. But they are four dangerous days in which the balance of world power wavers unsteadily as opposing factions battle for control of Riyadh and Saudi Arabia's oilwells, Whitehall wonders what to do, and an abrasive new US President strives to retain control over the oil his country depends on. Meanwhile, Franklin finds himself on the dangerous trail of a notorious...

A powerful blast blows away a bank wall and five innocent people – and 4,250,000 in gold bars disappear. A coolly-plotted assassination seems accidental, as a militant left-wing labor leader, on the eve of a paralyzing national strike, takes a fatal fall down the world's longest escalator. Off the Yorkshire coast, an oil rig the size of a football field is firebombed and totally destroyed. The UK suffers blindly under a series of tragedies with no visible link. Then, a defector appears at Cannon Row police station and spells out the threat from the sinister group CORDON – a right-wing takeover of Great Britain is imminent. Only 12 days remain. The Prime Minister orders his intelligence chief to recruit a new agent. The assignment: stop CORDON, no one can be trusted. CORDON has penetrated every level. From its top secret files, the Special State operations department pulls a dossier on Tom McCullin. A case-hardened former...

William Faraday, a raw young recruit to television news, longs to join the close jealous band of foreign correspondents – that exclusive, hard drinking, hard swearing, whoring world of the cynical professional. His break comes when he is sent to cover a Marxist coup on a tiny coral island in the Indian Ocean just off the east coast of Africa. But Faraday is quickly disillusioned. Nothing matches his expectations. The Marxist takeover is less of a coup than a hiccough, and the famous globetrotting war correspondents seem nothing more than middle-aged, drunken hacks. But history turns in a second and Faraday finds himself suddenly in love and in the middle of the biggest story in Africa. His innocence is lost in the violence of war. Faraday is bloodied. Brutality, murder and rape all play their part in a plot that ends in a deadly explosive game of hide and seek. It is a story that is already secretly happening in Africa....