Parallel Truths

Meet Jay Sandak, a maverick private spy with a penchant for the good life. In this debut novel, Sandak accepts an assignment from his former employer, the CIA. Operating out of Monaco, Sandak becomes embroiled in an "extraordinary rendition," intelligence jargon for kidnap and repatriation. The target is Markham Fitch, a secretive billionaire who fled the United States for sanctuary in Switzerland years earlier. Fitch leads Sandak to a strange German baron, a peddler of nuclear metals stolen from Russia, who believes his genius will bring about a New Age renaissance. Sandak enters a gray zone of rival U.S. government agencies, supervised by risk-hating bureaucrats like Pikestaff, the spluttering operations chief at the CIA. He struggles to complete his ever-evolving mission, always one cocktail ahead of latigue (a combination of jet-lag and fatigue) as he yo-yos the Atlantic. Back in his favorite Monaco bar, Sandak plans the final phase of this intricate operation, certain he wasn't paid nearly enough for his audacity.