ADAM LEBOR SERIES:

Kossuth Square

Kossuth Square

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

''A first-class crime thriller' CHARLES CUMMINGS. When Detective Balthazar Kovacs is called out before dawn to a brothel owned by his brother, he knows it can only be bad news. A customer has died in the brothel's VIP room. Worse still, he's an Arab financier, a guest of government, connected to a massive investment programme that could transform Hungary. It looks like a heart attack – but why has the brothel's CCTV footage been erased? Kovacs knows only too well the treacherous undercurrents that permeate life in Hungary's capital – the deadly intersection between the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history. He knows that his investigation is more than likely to lead back to the seat of power, the Országház, in Kossuth Square... but he does not expect to be swept into his own family's dark past too.
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District VIII

District VIII

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

Set in the long, hot Hungarian summer of 2015—and revealing the hidden, criminal world beneath Budapest's glittering facade—District VIII is the first novel in the new Detective Balthazar Kovacs mystery series.Life's tough for a Gypsy detective in Budapest. The cops don't trust you because you're a Gypsy. Your fellow Gypsies, even your own family, shun you because you're a cop.The dead, however, don't care. So when Balthazar Kovacs, a detective in the city's murder squad, gets a mysterious text message on his phone, he gulps down his coffee and goes to work. The message has two parts: a photograph and an address. The photograph shows a man, in his early thirties, lying on his back with his eyes open, half-covered by a blue plastic sheet. The address is 26 Republic Square, the former Communist Party headquarters, and once the most feared building in the country. But when Kovacs arrives at Republic Square, the body is gone...Inspired by true events,...
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Dohany Street

Dohany Street

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

Budapest's dark history finally catches up with Detective Balthazar Kovacs in the final instalment in Adam LeBor's Danube Blues Hungarian crime trilogy. Budapest, January 2016. The Danube is grey and half-frozen, and the city seems to have gone into hibernation. But not Detective Balthazar Kovacs. Elad Harrari, a young Israeli historian, has disappeared. There's no sign of violence but something feels very wrong.Harrari was working in the city's Jewish Museum, investigating the fate of the assets of the Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It's clear his research set off alarm bells at one of the country's most powerful companies. The more Balthazar digs into the case, the more he is certain that shadowy forces are in play. And the pressure is building: Budapest is preparing for a major diplomatic visit – if Harrari is not found it will be cancelled.The threats against Balthazar soon turn to violence. It's clear that if he is to find the historian...
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Milosevic

Milosevic

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

This is the first authoritative biography of Slobodan Milosevic, currently on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity. Adam LeBor, a critically acclaimed author and journalist who covered the Yugoslav Wars for the Independent and The Times, documents the life of a man whose policies instigated four wars, who skilfully exploited the most modern techniques of media management to whip up a nationalist frenzy, and under whose rule bloody campaigns of ethnic cleansing systematically destroyed a once sophisticated multi-ethnic country, and yet who retained for a decade the ability to wrap the 'international community' round his little finger. It gives the inside story of Milosevic's childhood, his marriage to Mira (who gave him an entrée into the highest circles of Yugoslavia's political elite), his rise to power, the looted money (estimated at some $30 billion), the ascendancy of crime over politics (personified in his son Marko's enterprises), his relationships with key...
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The Reykjavik Assignment

The Reykjavik Assignment

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

International thriller from renowned political journalist Adam LeBor, taking us behind the scenes in the corridors of power. UN covert negotiator, Yael Azoulay, has been sent to Reykjavik to broker a secret meeting between US President Freshwater and the Iranian president. Both parties want the violence to stop, but Yael soon realises that powerful enemies are pulling the strings. Enemies for whom peace means an end to their lucrative profit streams. In this gripping, intelligent thriller, Adam LeBor uses insights gained from twenty-five years of frontline reporting to show us who really has the upper hand in the international game of politics.
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The Budapest Protocol

The Budapest Protocol

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

Nazi-occupied Budapest, Winter 1944. The Russians are smashing through the German lines. Miklos Farkas breaks out of the Jewish ghetto to find food – at the Nazis' headquarters. There he is handed a stolen copy of The Budapest Protocol, detailing the Nazis' post-war plans. Miklos knows it must stay hidden forever if he is to stay alive.Present day Budapest. As the European Union launches the election campaign for the first President of Europe, Miklos Farkas is brutally murdered. His journalist grandson Alex buries his grief to track down the killers. He soon unravels a chilling conspiracy rooted in the dying days of the Third Reich, one that will ensure Nazi economic domination of Europe – and a plan for a new Gypsy Holocaust.The hunt is on for The Budapest Protocol. Alex is soon drawn deeper into a deadly web of intrigue and power play, a game played for the highest stakes: the very future of Europe.The Budapest Protocol is a journey into...
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City of Oranges

City of Oranges

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

Jaffa - famed for its orange groves - was for centuries a city of traders, merchants, teachers and administrators, home to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. That is, until the founding of the state of Israel, which was simultaneously a moment of jubilation for the Jews and a disaster - the Naqba - for the 100,000 Arabs who fled Jaffa in 1948. Through the stories of six families - three Arab and three Jewish - Adam LeBor delicately illuminates the complexity of modern Israel, going beyond the media stereotypes and political rhetoric to tell a moving human story. From the Christian Arab car-dealer, the Jewish coffee-and-spice merchant and the Arab baker who makes bread for the whole community, to the Jewish schoolgirl who befriends an Arab drug dealer, these people strive to make a life in a country born of conflict.
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The Washington Stratagem

The Washington Stratagem

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

A LONE AGENT. AN UNIMAGINABLE CONSPIRACY.UN covert negotiator Yael Azoulay went rogue in Geneva and nearly lost her life. Her physical wounds are healed, but she will never be able to forget what happened.Now back in New York, Yael uncovers a chilling conspiracy whose end game is a devastating new war in the Middle East. But as Yael draws closer to the truth, she is forced to confront the ghosts of her past.As the few certainties of her life begin to crumble around her, a terrifying truth is laid bare: Yael has enormously powerful enemies who neither forgive, nor forget.
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The Geneva Option

The Geneva Option

Adam LeBor

Politics / Literature & Fiction

A gripping thriller of international espionage, The Geneva Option by Adam LeBor pits a sexy, young UN staffer against a brutal conspiracy to control Africa’s natural resources.Yael Azoulay does the United Nations’ dirty work. Sent by the UN’s Secretary General to eastern Congo to negotiate with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide, she offers a deal: surrender to the UN tribunal, in exchange for a short sentence and a return to politics.The plan is to bring stability to the region so the West can exploit the region’s mineral wealth. But Yael soon realizes that the UN is prepared to turn a blind eye to mass murder.Yael finds herself on the run, hunted by the world’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies—and haunted by her past—ultimately learning that salvation means not just saving other’s lives but confronting her own inner demons.Written by Adam LeBor, a high-profile foreign correspondent and critically acclaimed investigative journalist, The Geneva Option takes readers on a nonstop journey through the secret corridors of international power.Review“British journalist Lebor…introduces brilliant and beautiful Yael Azoulay, a behindthe-scenes negotiator for the United Nations, in his gripping debut thriller, the first in a trilogy… [T]hose looking for a strong heroine in the mold of Lisbeth Salander will be satisfied.” (Publishers Weekly)“This thriller’s prologue is a small masterpiece in showing how the seemingly banal–a worker taking a cigarette break on a balcony–can be upended into terror. The rest of the book fulfills the prologue’s promise…. [with] scene after scene of heart-clutching suspense…Must reading.” (Booklist(starred review))“A gripping and atmospheric thriller from a great writer. Yael Azoulay is a character I’m looking forward to reading about again and again.” (Charles Cumming, New York Times bestselling author of The Trinity Six)“Adam LeBor masterfully weaves an international espionage thriller… Five Stars out of Five.” (Examiner) From the Back CoverYael Azoulay does the United Nations' dirty work by cutting deals that most of us never hear about. Equally at home in the caves of Afghanistan, the slums of Gaza, or corporate boardrooms all across the world, Yael believes the ends justify the means...until she's pushed way beyond her breaking point.When Yael is assigned to eastern Congo to negotiate with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide, she offers him a generous plea bargain. Thanks to Congo's abundance of a valuable mineral used in computer and cell phone production, her number one priority is maintaining regional stability. But when she discovers that Hakizimani is linked to the death of the person she loved the most—and that the UN is prepared to sanction mass murder—Yael soon realizes that salvation means not just saving others' lives but confronting her own inner demons.Spanning New York City, Africa, and Switzerland, The Geneva Option is the first in a series of gripping conspiracy thrillers, a tour de force of international espionage and intrigue.
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