Helen MacInnes

American diplomat Payton Pleydell and his wife Sylvia are the most respected, brilliant couple in Washington. Theirs seems a perfect marriage but Kate Jerold begins to suspect that her cousin's husband is not as devoted as he seems. Then the unexpected arrival of a Czech official threatens to bring the façade crashing down. Even after six years apart, Sylvia has not forgotten Jan Brovic; during the war they had been deeply, secretly in love. But...

When journalist Karen Cornell is invited to a peace conference in Prague, she only goes on the understanding that she will be granted a valuable interview. Instead, she finds herself chosen for a more hazardous task: carrying top-secret documents from a potential Czech defector back to Washington. With the papers safely in the hands of Peter Bristow, the one CIA man Karen can trust, she is sure her part in the drama is over, but soon she is pulled...

While on assignment in Paris and Venice, an American journalist works desperately to expose communist espionage activities. Fenner burned Rosenfeld's message, reminding himself wryly that he was behaving in the very best tradition. This was a game not too difficult to learn, he thought. A game? A game in deadly earnest. A vacation in Venice that was grim business. A girl constantly beside him who wasn't his. How the hell had he walked into this upside-down...

Paul Haydn was on his way home at last, to New York and the civilian life he longed for, after years of war. Yet he would never forget the tormented people, desperate for refuge in Berlin. They had survived the war-but now a new, sinister presence threatened them, their families, the whole of society. Now he discovered that, back home, some of his former colleagues had dangerous political sympathies, that someone was trying to discredit the woman...

British soldier Peter Lennox, a POW in an Italian prison camp, is still fighting his own war. An artist in civilian life, his hands bear the scars of wounds received during his capture at the fall of Tobruk, and he suspects he will never paint again. The only thing that sustains him is plotting his escapes, no matter how many times he is recaptured. But in September 1943 the Italians surrender to the Allies, and Lennox is free. Wanting nothing more...

"Poland has not yet perished while still we live." English girl Sheila Matthews accepts an invitation to holiday in Poland, the country where her father died in mysterious circumstances. When German bombers begin pounding Warsaw, she decides against returning home and is recruited by the Polish underground. Playing a dangerous game as a double agent, Sheila must use all her skill to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo. But soon the Germans begin to...

A phone call prompts Bill Lammiter, a young American playwright, to follow a former girlfriend to Rome. There Lammiter saves a mysterious Italian girl from a beating and the fat is in the fire. A kidnapping, a battle in a Renaissance villa, a shrewd gamekeeper, a chance snapshot and a touring preppy contribute to the excitement and suspense of this Cold War thriller.

While carrying out research in Paris, American historian John Craig is surprised when he runs into his old college professor. Sussman is a worried man. A survivor of Auschwitz, he in shock, having seen and been seen by one of the Nazis who tortured him in the camp. But SS Colonel Berg has been dead for 10 years - or has he? Before Craig can help solve the riddle, Sussman is found dead, and Craig is being questioned by the police. As various international...

He demanded the immediate dispatch of two suitably trained operatives to Salzburg. Extreme measures might be necessary. In 1945, with their thousand-year empire falling around them and the Allies on their heels, the Nazis hide a sealed chest in the dark, forbidding waters of the Finstersee-a lake surrounded by the brooding peaks of the Austrian Alps. There it lies for twenty-one years, almost forgotten, until a British agent decides to raise it from...

New York art expert Colin Grant is sent to Vienna and bid on a priceless Old Master on behalf of a Texan millionaire. No sooner has Grant landed in Austria than his seemingly simple assignment turns into a nightmare, as he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy to unleash a wave of international terrorism.