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Over twenty years ago, William F. Buckley Jr. launched the dashing character of Blackford Oakes like a missile over the literary landscape. This newly minted CIA agent-brainy, bold, and complex-began his career by saving the queen of England and quickly took his place in the pantheon of master spies drawn up by Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and John le Carre.

Against the backdrop of Cold War intrigue, in this his eleventh outing, Oakes crosses swords with Kim Philby, perhaps the highest-ranking in the parade of defectors to the Soviet Union.

Oakes is now himself a master spy, this time working outside the ambit of the director and around agency rules. His romance with an able and worldly Soviet doctor is consolation for the death of his beloved Sally. But after his return to Washington, he receives dismaying news. It is inevitable that the great Soviet spy and the renowned American agent will meet again-this time with deadly consequences.

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) was the founder of National Review and the host of one of television's longest-running public affairs programs, Firing Line. The author of more than fifteen novels, many of them New York Times bestsellers, he won the National Book Award for Stained Glass, the second in the series featuring Blackford Oakes.

Patrick Cullen (a.k.a. John Lescault), a native of Massachusetts, is a graduate of the Catholic University of America. He lives in Washington, DC, where he works in theater.