The Body Outside The Kremlin

Solovetsky occupies the island site of a former monastery in the White Sea. Here, hundreds of miles from civilization and with a skeleton crew of secret-policemen in charge, some prisoners are consigned to all kinds of forced labor while others sit at comfortable desks in administrative or cultural positions. With the brutal winter fast approaching, Tolya Bogomolov, a young mathematician serving a three-year sentence, hopes an acquaintance he’s been cultivating will lead to a less brutal work assignment. Knowing Gennady Antonov holds a privileged position restoring the monks’ seized collection of icons ought to improve Tolya’s odds of reassignment. But when Antonov’s body is discovered floating frozen in the bay, their connection turns dangerous. At first the authorities question Tolya, but then he’s mystified when they assign him to assist the elderly detective investigating the case – but better to find the real killer than have the murder pinned on him. To avoid becoming the murderer’s next victim, Tolya must defy Solovetsky’s unforgiving regime and make ruthless use of his fellow prisoners. Putting his story to paper thirty years later at last means reckoning the true cost of his survival.

Solovetsky occupies the island site of a former monastery in the White Sea. Here, hundreds of miles from civilization, and with a skeleton crew of secret-policemen in charge, some prisoners are consigned to all kinds of forced labor and others sit at comfortable desks in administrative or cultural positions. With the brutal winter fast approaching, Tolya Bogomolov, a young mathematician serving a three-year sentence, hopes an acquaintance he's been cultivating will lead to a less brutal work assignment, maybe even a little more bread in his ration. Knowing Gennady Antonov holds a privileged position restoring the monks' seized collection of icons ought to improve Tolya's odds of reassignment. But when Antonov's body is discovered floating frozen in the bay, their connection turns dangerous. At first the authorities question Tolya, but then he's mystified when they assign him to assist the elderly detective investigating the case--but better to find the real killer than have the murder pinned on him. Digging into Antonov's secrets turns up strange expropriations of the museum's icons, rumors of an escape conspiracy among White Army officers, and an illicit affair with a female prisoner who won't tell all she knows. To avoid becoming the murderer's next victim, Tolya must defy Solovetsky's unforgiving regime and make ruthless use of his fellow prisoners. Putting his story to paper at last means reckoning the true cost of his survival.

"Published in the year 2018 by arrangement with the author"--Title page verso.

The untold story of how Russia refined the art and science of targeted assassination abroad -- while Western spies watched in horror as their governments failed to guard against the threat. They thought they had found a safe haven in the green hills of England. They were wrong. One by one, the Russian oligarchs, dissidents, and gangsters who fled to Britain after Vladimir Putin came to power dropped dead in strange or suspicious circumstances. One by one, their British lawyers and fixers met similarly grisly ends. Yet, one by one, the British authorities shut down every investigation -- and carried on courting the Kremlin. The spies in the riverside headquarters of MI6 looked on with horror as the scope of the Kremlin's global killing campaign became all too clear. And, across the Atlantic, American intelligence officials watched with mounting alarm as the bodies piled up, concerned that the tide of death could spread to the United States. Those fears intensified when a one-time Kremlin henchman was found bludgeoned to death in a Washington, D.C. penthouse. But it wasn't until Putin's assassins unleashed a deadly chemical weapon on the streets of Britain, endangering hundreds of members of the public in a failed attempt to slay the double agent Sergei Skripal, that Western governments were finally forced to admit that the killing had spun out of control. Unflinchingly documenting the growing web of death on British and American soil, Heidi Blake bravely exposes the Kremlin's assassination campaign as part of Putin's ruthless pursuit of global dominance -- and reveals why Western governments have failed to stop the bloodshed. The unforgettable story that emerges whisks us from London's high-end night clubs to Miami's million-dollar hideouts ultimately renders a bone-chilling portrait of money, betrayal, and murder, written with the pace and propulsive power of a thriller. Based on a vast trove of unpublished documents, bags of discarded police evidence, and interviews with hundreds of insiders, this heart-stopping international investigation uncovers one of the most important -- and terrifying -- geopolitical stories of our time.

Discredited KGB agent Yuri Raikin risks his career and his life to investigate the mysterios death of a Soviet general.

This instant #1 New York Times bestseller and “modern techno-thriller” (New York Journal of Books) follows Mitch Rapp in a race to prevent Russia’s gravely ill leader from starting a full-scale war with NATO. When Russian president Maxim Krupin discovers that he has inoperable brain cancer, he’s determined to cling to power. His first task is to kill or imprison any of his countrymen who can threaten him. Soon, though, his illness becomes serious enough to require a more dramatic diversion—war with the West. Upon learning of Krupin’s condition, CIA director Irene Kennedy understands that the US is facing an opponent who has nothing to lose. The only way to avoid a confrontation that could leave millions dead is to send Mitch Rapp to Russia under impossibly dangerous orders. With the Kremlin’s entire security apparatus hunting him, he must find and kill a man many have deemed the most powerful in the world. Success means averting a war that could consume all of Europe. But if his mission is discovered, Rapp will plunge Russia and America into a conflict that neither will survive in “a timely, explosive novel that shows yet again why Mitch Rapp is the best hero the thriller genre has to offer” (The Real Book Spy).

New York Times Bestseller: Six American spies embark on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines in this classic Cold War espionage thriller. Lt. Cmdr. Charles Rone, a young naval intelligence officer with a sterling record, finds himself abruptly discharged from the service. Without his consent, Rone has been recruited to join a top-secret network of agents who operate independently of the US government. Led by a cynical spymaster known only as the Highwayman, the group will break any law and destroy as many innocent lives as necessary to stop the spread of communism. In Moscow, the Americans must make contact with a high-level mole in the Kremlin and recover a letter that could spark a nuclear war if it falls into the wrong hands. But treachery is an integral part of this shadow conflict between superpowers, and no sooner has the team arrived in the Soviet capital than the double-crossing begins. One devastating betrayal follows the next as Rone desperately tries to stay alive and out of the clutches of the KGB long enough to find out who compromised the mission. Inspired by author Noel Behn’s service in the US Army’s Counterintelligence Corps, The Kremlin Letter is a realistic and hard-edged tale of international intrigue that ranks with the best of John Le Carré and Len Deighton. A New York Times bestseller, it was the basis for a John Huston film starring Orson Welles and Max von Sydow.