Scorpion Winter

In Kaplan’s intricate third thriller featuring the ex-CIA agent code-named Scorpion (after Scorpion Betrayal), Ukrainian businessman Vadim Akhnetzov wants to hire Scorpion to prevent the assassination of one of the two candidates running for president of Ukraine. The death of either candidate could result in a war with Russia that could escalate into an international conflict involving Europe and the U.S. Scorpion, who agrees after negotiating a hefty fee, soon finds himself in Ukraine teamed with a stunningly beautiful political adviser, Iryna Mikhailivna Shevchenko. Many people die as Scorpion and Iryna try to prevent war, more than a few at Scorpion’s hand, while tangling with several national secret police agencies, the regular police, the Ukrainian mafia, and the CIA. Scorpion learns, once again, there are no friends in the spy business and that life—one’s own and those of your enemies—exists on a knife-edge of deceit. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (July)