The Contractor - Tapa dura

Praise for "The Contractor" "Middle East expert MacKinnon puts a fresh twist on the stolen suitcase-nuke plot in this smart thriller...This fine espionage procedural should please spy and adventure fans alike." --"Publishers Weekly" "A truly compelling contemporary spy thriller." --BooklistPraise for "Morning Spy, Evening Spy" "MacKinnon...shows great insight into the inner workings of U.S. intelligence. His clipped prose style, descriptive discipline and tone-perfect dialogue elevate this thriller above the pack." --"Publishers Weekly""""This CIA procedural... pays off in a gut punch of an ending." "Booklist""A richly drawn, splendidly written novel....If you're a thriller reader, snatch this one up. It's the best of the year, by far." "--St. Louis Post-Dispatch""A riveting behind-the-scenes look at CIA dealings with al Qaeda. So convincing you can't be sure where fiction ends and non-fiction begins. A first-rate intellectual thriller." --John Altman, author of "The Watchmen""MacKinnon is an incredibly talented writer, and "Morning Spy, Evening Spy" holds its own with the best of John le Carre and Len Deighton. In a world of high-tech thrillers full of robotic wizardry, MacKinnon delivers espionage literature in its classic form, where intelligence agents are human, flawed, and ultimately courageous in the face of this era's formidable enemies." --Steven Hartov, author of the "New York Times "bestseller "The Company of Heroes""MacKinnon's writing is sharp and fast moving...[he] provides a good window into how the CIA operates." -"The Washingtonian""MacKinnon has a quiet, spare style and a knack for nailing down just the right details...A nicely written thriller." --"Kirkus Reviews"

Rick Behringer is an outside contractor working for the CIA. In the light of day, he provides communications security for small businesses and government offices. In the shadows, Rick's a spy who is still haunted by the mysterious death of his own father, a high-level officer in the CIA who committed suicide when Rick was thirteen years old. Exploiting his dangerous network of contacts, Rick learns of a mysterious Pakistani Islamist, a rogue nuclear physicist, who is trying to acquire highly enriched uranium in order to construct 'an Islamic bomb'. As he begins to hunt him down, he encounters a host of nefarious characters, a few willing to help, many more willing to take his life. As the plot hurtles toward its startling conclusion, Rick faces the devastating truth about his father's death while he spans the globe in a desperate struggle to take down a terrorist mastermind with the means to unleash hell on our nation.