A War Of Shadows

The war in France is a stalemate. The "Mill," a brutal, industrial-scale meat grinder, is chewing up British, American, and German soldiers by the thousands. On the front lines, Sergeant Frank Miller and Corporal Thomas Atkins, veterans of the battle for Britain, fight for every bloody inch of mud, their survival?and the fate of the war?depending on a new, secret front.

This is the "shadow war." Raymond Clinton, the unassuming clerk who became a national hero after hunting down the spy who orchestrated the invasion of Britain, has been pulled from the light. He is recruited by the mysterious Mr Smith into a new, clandestine intelligence service. His training is brutal, his mission absolute: shed the skin of the man he was and become a "ghost."

His first assignment: Berlin. He must infiltrate the heart of Britain's key ally, a city strained by a war on two fronts. His mission is to assist a secret cell of German counter-intelligence, led by the aristocratic Elsa von Lützow, in hunting a deadly Russian spy ring. This "Viper's Nest" is run by Katerina Volkov?a brilliant, ruthless fanatic operating in the shadow of her infamous handler and with a personal vendetta. Her goal: to steal the plans for the Allies' final, war-winning offensive.

But when Raymond's initial gambit to feed the Russians poisoned intelligence backfires catastrophically, it results in the annihilation of an entire German Panzer division?a loss felt personally by his new allies. Disavowed by London and now hunted by Katerina's network, Raymond is trapped. He realises the horrifying truth: his mission was betrayed from the start. A high-level traitor, a ghost in the halls of Whitehall, is playing both sides against the middle, feeding secrets to the Russians and ensuring the war bleeds all nations dry.

With no support and his cover burned, Raymond must go to ground, adopting a new identity. He must forge a desperate "Alliance of Ghosts" with his German counterparts, including the formidable Abwehr chief, Oberst von Kleist. Together, they must unmask the true traitor and set one final, complex counter-trap of such audacious deception that it will either dismantle the Russian network and win the war, or get them all killed.

A direct sequel to The Unthinkable War, A War of Shadows is a gripping, high-stakes thriller of paranoia and espionage, where the lines between ally and enemy are blurred, and the cost of victory is measured in bodies.