The Death Trade

Iran is on the verge of making a nuclear bomb that “is cheap and four times as effective as anything else on the planet” in bestseller Higgins’s timely 20th thriller featuring Sean Dillon, the former IRA enforcer turned British black ops agent. The unwilling mastermind behind the bomb is French-Iranian Simon Husseini, whose work on medical isotopes led to his forced research into nuclear weapons. Husseini’s elderly mother and invalid 40-year-old daughter are under house arrest in Tehran to ensure his cooperation. When Husseini manages to escape to Iraq using a false passport, it is up to Lt. Col. Declan Rashid, the military attaché at Iran’s London embassy, to recapture him. Meanwhile, Dillon and Capt. Sara Gideon, introduced in 2012’s A Devil Is Waiting, set out to rescue Husseini, free his family members, and bring him to England. Higgins, with his usual panache, follows a well-established and successful formula that should please fans. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Literary Agency (U.K.). (Dec.)