Showing results by author "Helen MacInnes" in All Categories

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 21 years, almost forgotten, until a British agent decides to raise it from the depths. The secrets he uncovers are far-reaching and lethal, and in Salzburg, Bill Mathison, a New York attorney on the trail of a missing colleague, finds himself drawn into the shadowy underworld of international espionage.

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 suspect her and she flees to the forest, to be reunited with the enigmatic Captain Adam Wisniewski, now a wanted partisan.

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.

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 he had once loved. The pattern seemed suddenly familiar. He began to realize why there was such interest in his counter-propaganda skills.

Richard and Frances Myles are preparing for their annual European summer vacation in 1939 when they are visited at their Oxford college by old friend Peter Galt, who has a seemingly simple job for them. But in the heightened atmosphere of prewar Europe, nobody is above suspicion. In fact, the husband and wife are being carefully monitored by shadowy figures.

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 organizations are drawn into the hunt for Sussman’s killer, he realizes the ex-Nazi is far more than just a wanted war criminal.

Just another routine overseas assignment. That’s what successful young New York architect Ken Strang thought when a national travel magazine sent him to Europe to sketch Greek ruins. What he did not know, until it was too late, was that from the moment he boarded the ship, he had become the pawn in a murderous game of international intrigue. To Strang, danger was no object. He could take care of himself, but he had reckoned without Cecilia, his beautiful photographer. When he fell in love with her, he gave his enemies the one weapon they needed.

For Nina O’Connell, a trip round the world was the holiday of a lifetime. Traveling in a group led by the attractive James Kiley and his friend Tony Shawfield, she is surprised when she runs into an old flame on a sunny Amsterdam street. But Robert Renwick, ex-army major attached to NATO, is not there by chance. He is on the hunt for two terrorists who have left a trail of bombings and murder in their wake, and now he must keep Nina safe while trying to discover their next target. Soon Nina is caught up in a grim game of life or death.

It was 1953, and nothing could shake William Denning’s resolve to leave the army and return to the States. Nothing, except one of the largest diamond hauls ever—which, in the wrong hands, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was a potentially lethal force. In a small village in the Swiss mountains, Denning discovered that there was not only a jewelry robbery at stake. In the ruthless world of espionage and international conspiracy, his adversaries were the most unlikely people—and the most dangerous.

Chuck Kelso is an idealist. When he steals a top-secret NATO memorandum, he only intends to leak it to the press; but it is soon in the hands of a Russian agent, a man who has spent nine years quietly working himself into the fabric of Washington society. Within hours it has reached the KGB, and the CIA’s top man in Moscow has had his cover blown. For British agent Tony Lawton, hunting down the Russian operative—the "agent in place"—is a welcome challenge. But for Chuck’s brother, the journalist Tom Kelso, and his beautiful wife, Thea, the affair has unleashed a very special terror.

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 into an astonishing web of blackmail, assassination and treason at the highest level.

Under the Mediterranean sun, a drama begins in a café in Málaga. For Ian Ferrier, an employee of the United States Space Agency on holiday to visit his old friend Jeff Reid, it means the startling discovery that Reid is not just a wine exporter, but rather engaged in smuggling communist defectors to the West. Events take a turn for the worse when Ferrier, a stranger to the deadly world of espionage, must take sole charge of a high-ranking KGB agent. Alone in an frighteningly alien landscape, he can afford no mistakes when choosing whom to trust …

He stared at the unfamiliar watch on his wrist. Three hours ago, he had stood on English soil. Three hours ago, he had been Martin Hearne, British Intelligence agent. Now he was in Nazi-occupied Brittany, posing as Bertrand Corlay, with the Frenchman’s life reduced to headings in his memory. Hearne looked down at the faded uniform, which had once been Corlay’s, felt once more for the papers in the inside pocket. He was ready. From now on, he was one step away from death.

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 world? Where, he wondered suddenly, would Venice lead?

Irina Kusak’s recently divorced husband, Jiri Hrádek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the West, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hrádek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father.

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.

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.

In a quiet London pub, Bob Renwick, founder of counter-terrorist agency Interintell, is handed a list of names. The Minus List has been compiled by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm, engaged in training terrorists and arms dealing, and he intends to remove anyone who might get in his way. To be on the list means death for the target, their friends and family, and Renwick’s name is third. On a desperate mission that takes him from New York to Paris, from Zurich to Djibouti, Renwick must unmask his nemesis to save all that he holds dear.

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 now there is a new war, and former allies have become bitter enemies. Jan is on the other side and his motives may not be pure.