Crossfire [Hardcover]

David Hagberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1991

Russia is in turmoil. As liberals struggle to hold power, the hard-liners in the KGB decide tof fund themselves. They will hijack a vital US gold shipment. The first step will be to frame Kirk McGarvey for the bombing of the CIA's Paris headquarters...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Paris CIA station is bombed just as the U.S. returns long-frozen bank assets to Iran--in the form of 125 tons of gold. A coincidence? Not when the evidence points to ex-CIA agent Kirk McGarvey. Not when a KGB starved for funds under Gorbachev calculates the uses it could make of the treasure. And not when top KGB killer Arkady Kurshin is ready to betray his own service in order to see McGarvey dead. Hagberg recycles the central characters from Countdown in a contemporary secret-agent thriller, with settings that range from Buenos Aires to Teheran. The novel's dizzying pace is sustained at some sacrifice of clarity and credibility: a secondary plot taking McGarvey and German/Argentinean beauty Maria Schimmer in pursuit of a hoard of Nazi gold is poorly integrated with a main story line that has the Russians changing policies in an unnecessarily random fashion. But Hagberg is a master of the action scene, and readers will cheerfully follow him from episode to episode, eager to see how he extracts his characters from a succession of apparently hopeless predicaments.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Russians, Iranians, Americans, Nazis, Israelis, and Argentines go for each others' throats in the search for real, fake, old, and new gold in at least two hemispheres. Hagberg (Countdown, Cross Fire) also writes as Sean Flannery (Counterstrike, Crossed Swords). The mystery guest enters the American Embassy in Paris and signs in as Kirk McGarvey. He conducts a bit of fake business about a lapsed passport and then wanders off on his own to plant enough plastic explosive to demolish the building and then slips outside to push the button. The real Kirk McGarvey, an out-of- favor CIA assassin, recognizes the professional signature of Arkady Kurshin, the Russian superagent that McGarvey himself had shot and thrown overboard in the middle of the Mediterranean. Could Kurshin have survived? And is he carrying out a personal vendetta? He could and he is. McGarvey, who hadn't been doing much of anything, suddenly has his hands full searching for Kurshin--whose Paris job is just the first in a series planned for all the major European capitals--and also searching with a very tense, very sexy brunette for a missing Nazi submarine, last seen off Argentina. The U-boat's captain was the brunette's father, and there was a very valuable cargo--possibly a load of ill-gotten gold the size of a shipment from the US to Iran that McGarvey must keep from disappearing into the Soviet Disunion. Sounds terribly confusing, but it's not. After 18 journeyman thrillers, Hagberg knows what he's doing. McGarvey wears very well indeed. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 409 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (May 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312851626
• ISBN-13: 978-0312851620
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #723,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

DAVID HAGBERG is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling Joshua's Hammer, Soldier of God, and Allah's Scorpion. He makes his home in Sarasota, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As exciting as it is Explosive..., June 19, 2001

By 

Jeff Edwards "RadioJeff" (Twin Falls, Idaho) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Crossfire (Mass Market Paperback)

Our hero, Kirk McGarvey, makes an explosive comeback in this thrilling adventure which jumps from one place on the globe to another with the speed of a Tomahawk missile. I have long felt that McGarvey was a combination of James Bond, Jack Ryan, Dirk Pitt & Indiana Jones rolled into one...and he is in TOP form in 'Crossfire'.

Arkady Kurshin, who Kirk thought he had 'taken care of' in his previous adventure comes back to serve up a heaping dose of revenge against the one man who has turned his life upsidedown and who very nearly killed him. Arkady is one of those villains you almost root for--ALMOST, because he is so much fun as the bad guy, and gives Kirk such a run for his money that you are left almost breathless as you read along.

I also VERY much enjoyed the addition of the submarine in the plot. WELL done, Mr. Hagberg. I enjoyed virtually everything about this novel...in fact as I look back on it, I cannot think of ANYTHING which I did NOT enjoy. Kirk McGarvey is easily one of the most entertaining characters I know in print today, and as long as he keeps making comebacks in Hagberg's novels, I will be lining up to purchase his books. 'Crossfire' rivals almost anything written by Clancy, and for sheer adventure/action, Kirk can keep pace with Dirk Pitt any day. If I had to sum up this novel in one word, it'd be this: FUN.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an Exciting Action Book!, September 18, 2000

By 

Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crossfire (Mass Market Paperback)

Kirk McGarvey once again gets to do battle with his arch enemy Arkady Kurshin. McGarvey had thought that he had killed Arkady Kurshin on the cosst of Syria. Kurshin survived his battle with McGarvey by killing his rescuers,some Syrian troops. Kurshin makes his return by blowing up the American embassy in Paris and placing the blame on McGarvey. McGarvey rescues several people from the exploded embassy including a woman from Argentina who is searching for a sunken Nazi submarine. She hooks up with McGarvey and they find the submarine only to discover that it has fake gold. They obtain a list from the submarine telling the na,mes of Nazis who know where tje gold is. In the meantime the Americans have returned the Iranians their assets in the form of gold. Arkady Kurshin and some of his KGB gang are going to steal it. McGarvey stops them buts gets badly wounded. Kurshin is also wounded in the battle. McGarvey and the woman find the location of the gold. A tremendous battle takes place in a castle in Lisbon involving McGarvey,Kurshin,Israeli agents,and guards who work for the Nazis. Kurshin is finally killed. A very good read. This was a book that I could reccomend to anyone.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hagberg In Usual Fine Form, October 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossfire (Mass Market Paperback)

Hagberg aka Sean Flannery writes a compelling spy yarn, no matter what nome de plume he writes under. Ranks right up there with books like Flannery's Moving Targets and Counterstrike. This tale of the fight between McGarvey and Kurshin is one to read, even if you haven't read any of the others before this.