Lethal Secrets [Mass Market Paperback]

Pete Earley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2006

Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley sets the stage for this shocking thriller with an actual security threat the CIA secretly investigated during the peak of the Cold War: that the Soviet Union's KGB had cleverly smuggled a nuclear bomb into the very heart of Washington, D.C. In Lethal Secrets, the bomb is now in the hands of a band of Chechen rebels, led by Movladi "the Viper" Islamov, who's threatening to detonate the device unless his demands are met.
The fate of the city rests in the hands of a disgraced deputy U.S. marshal, Wyatt Conway, who is reluctantly called into action by his FBI and CIA rivals because he was once a friend of Islamov's, before the freedom fighter turned into an international terrorist. His only hope at getting to Islamov lies with Vladimir Khrenkov, a possibly corrupt Russian intelligence agent. Conway suspects Khrenkov of being the man who executed a top Russian mobster whom Conway was protecting in the federal witness protection program. Kept on short leash by Kimberly Lodge, a skeptical CIA beauty who finds him incompetent and foolish, Conway must find a way to manipulate and expose Khrenkov, keep Lodge and her bureaucratic cronies off his back, and prevent Islamov from igniting the spark for Armageddon.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

What could have been an explosive novel of international intrigue exploiting post-9/11 paranoia sparks brilliantly before sputtering out. Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Conway is charged with guarding Sergey Pudin, a Russian mafiosi. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence agent Colonel Khrenkov is blackmailed into murdering Pudin before he can testify against major crime bosses. In distant Chechnya, Movladi "The Viper" Islamov—a former student of Conway's—has become an international terrorist in the Chechen cause, and he's discovered that in the 1950s, the Soviets built a thermonuclear "sleeper bomb" that they secreted in the basement of the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. Conway, a throwback to pre-1950s he-man values, is a devil-may-care smart aleck who confuses prejudice for opinion and wisecracks for wisdom, but he's apparently irresistible to women, especially to Kimberly Lodge, a shapely CIA counterterrorism expert. Undaunted by demotion, Conway shoehorns himself into the CIA's investigative team, making monkeys of the best of the U.S. and Russian officials. Earley knows his stuff—he seamlessly works in complex detail about everything from government bureaucracy to weapons technology—but he undermines his plot with improbabilities and contrivances. Better editing could have made this thriller a blast.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Pete Early imagines the unimaginable and delivers a very chilling and much too believable story of nuclear Armageddon. A wonderful blend of fact and fiction."--Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of Night Fall on Lethal Secrets

"Lethal Secrets made my hair stand lethally on end and put my pulse at DefCon One. You'll be up all night with nitroglycerin tablets on the bedstand. You'll need them. Pete Earley proves he's a master of thrills and chills."--Doug Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Tyrannosaur Canyon

"Lethal Secrets is a book definitely worth your time. Pete Earley's novel [is] quite a blast."--Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered

"Sparks brilliantly. . . . Earley knows his stuff--he seamlessly works in complex detail about everything from government bureaucracy to weapons technology."--Publishers Weekly on Lethal Secrets

"A tale as wired as Washington itself."--W.E.B. Griffin, New York Times bestselling author of The Hostage on Lethal Secrets

"Pete Earley goes to Condition Red on page one, and never lets up in this absorbing thriller of nuclear terror! With rich characters, fast pace and exotic locale's, Lethal Secrets sweeps you on with one surprise after another."---Walter J. Boyne, New York Times bestselling of Operation Iraqi Freedom

"The ultimate 'sleeper agent.' Lethal--and believable--terror."--Barbara D'Amato, Edgar Award-winning author of Death of a Thousand Cuts on Lethal Secrets

"Pete Earley's eye for detail--honed over twenty-five years in the trenches of investigative journalism--brings his fiction to life. His spies, mobsters, and law enforcement officials walk straight off the pages into your mind's eye. Lethal Secrets, his sophomore outing, is his best to date."--Mike Sager, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Scary Monsters and Super Freaks

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765346931
• ISBN-13: 978-0765346933
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,145,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pete Earley is a former Washington Post reporter and a New York Times bestselling author. His book Circumstantial Evidence helped release an unfairly sentenced man and won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice and an Edgar(r) Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DISAPPOINTINGLY LAME, January 7, 2007

By 

DM (ORegon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lethal Secrets (Mass Market Paperback)

Started out good...i.e. the writing was good, the story was different, characters were cliché, but I ignored it. Then it all started to collapse on page 135...i.e. things just became too unbelievable to ignore. And the ending was disgustingly lame. Even if 9/10 of the book happened to be good the ending alone would have killed it.

In a nut shell. A Chechen (islamic) freedom fighter is informed that an old (1955) soviet nuclear bomb is alive and well hidden behind a false wall in the old Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C.. The freedom fighter sees it as a gift from allah and proceeds to threaten the US into forcing the Russians out of Chechnya. There's a side story going on also involving the main character, Russian mafia related.

One example of the moronic ending. If you and your buddies were entrusted with the safe and swift (it's set to detonate in just 2 1/2 hrs) removal of a nuclear bomb out of Washington D.C., what would you being doing and thinking at the time? Well our two main characters strip their clothes off and screw like rabbits. That's just one example. Need I say more.

Given Pete Earley writes mostly nonfiction (true crime) and was a former newspaper, reporter I assumed his fiction would be more intelligent than most but sadly it is not.