Deep in the heart of Russia, a group of casually dressed young men are learning a different kind of lesson. The undergraduates sprawled around a game board aren't chilling out on campus: the young KGB agents attending the Charm School are brushing up on their American. When a young tourist goes to the aid of a stranger on a dark Russian road, he is astonished to find a fellow American on the run. The man has been missing for over a decade, plucked from the jungles of Vietnam to become an unwilling tutor at the institution. Now his former students are poised to strike at the heart of America.
Ben Tyson is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest handsome family man, admired by men and desired by women. But sixteen years ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There, in 1968, the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity - and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson. His family, his career and his personal sense of honour hang in the balance.
For forty years Western intelligence agents have known a terrible secret: the Russians have a mole - code-named Talbot - inside the CIA. At first Talbot is suspected of killing European agents.
St Patrick's Day, New York City. Everyone is celebrating but everyone is in for the shock of his life. Born into the heat and hatred of the Northern Ireland conflict, IRA man Brian Flynn has masterminded a brilliant terrorist act - the seizure of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Among his hostages: the woman Brian Flynn once loved, a former terrorist turned peace activist.
Veteran adventure and suspense writer MacLean returns to sea in his latest effort, which is set aboard the British hospital ship San Andreas en route from Halifax to Aberdeen during World War II. The first sign of trouble on board occurs when the ship's lights fail just before dawn. Then the vessel comes under a bombing attack that severely damages its superstructure and sinks its escort frigate.