Erevis Cale #03 - Midnight's Mask
Paul S. Kemp is the author of several previous Forgotten Realms titles, including Resurrection, Shadow’s Witness, Twilight Falling, and Dawn of Night. He also contributed a short story to The Halls of Stormweather.
Before special operative Chandler was forced to FLEE, she executed the most difficult missions—and most dangerous people—for the government. So when she’s tasked with saving a VIP’s daughter from human traffickers, Chandler expects the operation to be by the numbers…until she uncovers a secret that will endanger the entire population of New York City, and possibly the world.
A graduate student working in animal genetics, Beth Coldwell is in town to track and tag big cats in the wild. Her prospects for the summer only improve when she meets Kelan and Reidar Falke and decides the sexy brothers are the right pair to fulfill her other, less than scientific, desires...
But her research is a threat to the Falke family secret. When Kelan, in cougar form, is captured, that secret comes closer than ever to being revealed. He escapes, but not before Beth draws a blood sample, and analysis shows this is no ordinary mountain lion.
Kelan and Reidar cannot deny the powerful attraction they feel toward Beth. She might just be their destined mate. But if they reveal themselves to her, will she embrace who they are or see them as just another science experiment?
63,000 words
SUMMARY: Summary of The fall of the dream machine: when all the world's a stage, director Cockley will run it.
Gattica Province died five years ago and sparked a war between the Earth Federation and the Epsilon Alliance. Cat Anders left E-Fed service after she learned the truth about the attacks on her home, defecting to the Alliance as a fighter pilot. She thinks she's alone in the universe. She's about to find out exactly how wrong she is...
EDITORIAL REVIEW: It's a fear more paralyzing than falling. More terrifying than absolute darkness. More horrifying than anything you can imagine. It's the one fear you cannot escape, no matter where you run...no matter where you hide. It's the fear of yourself. It's real. It can happen to you. And facing it can be deadly.False MemoryFear for your mind.
A Q&A with Sergei Kostin
Question: You spent two years researching the backstory of this book. What about Vetrov first caught your attention?
Sergei Kostin: It was pure luck that I happened upon this case. I was writing a book with a former KGB colonel who was responsible for counterintelligence operations in the Soviet Union investigating French citizens. While we were working together, he mentioned the Farewell case. He had asked for the Farewell dossier in order to learn about the techniques used by French intelligence for handling Farewell in Moscow, so he studied a number of the files and took many notes. The notes he gave me from his research were the start of my investigation, because I realized how relevant this case was for the present day--and Farewell's complex personality was intriguing to me.
Q: There are many sides to this story: Russian, French, American. How did you begin unearthing all the pieces and evaluating how to share them?
SK: For the first year, I only had the Russian side. I had the notes from the Farewell KGB dossier, as well as notes from interviews with his widow, his son, his colleagues, and his friends. Then I went to France and had the chance to add the recollections of Farewell's first handler, Xavier Ameil, and his wife, Claude. I did try to get additional information from the DST (the French counterintelligence agency) and the DGSE (French foreign intelligence). As I expected, they didn't cooperate. The DST head during Farewell's time, Marcel Chalet, then retired, refused to meet me; his deputy, Raymond Nart, was still in active service. Patrick Ferrant, Farewell's main handler, also refused.
Luckily, I was contacted by Eric Raynaud, who wanted to make a movie of my book Bonjour, Farewell and was working on the script. We met two years later and I offered him the opportunity to collaborate on a new edition, giving him some leads in France. Thus it was Eric who conducted the main investigation from the French side for the second edition. There were several reasons for this: It was six years after my first try at uncovering more information, so Raymond Nart and Patrick Ferrant had retired and were able to reveal more. And on top of that, a Russian journalist researching a book about espionage looks suspicious. Because Eric was French and had plenty of time and flexibility, he was able to convince Marcel Chalet and Jacques Prévost to speak about the case. Also he obtained comments about the Farewell cast from Richard Allen, President Reagan's first national security adviser. As a result of Eric's work, our book on Farewell's case became much more consistent from an international perspective.
Q: Because Vetrov is viewed as a traitor in Russia, you initially published your book in France rather than your home country. The Russian government forbade filming of the screenplay in Moscow, and two Russian actors bowed out of the lead role because of social and political pressure. Did you ever consider not publishing the book because of the social taboos?
SK: No. I wrote the first version of my book in 1995 to 1996, when many more doors, including those inside the KGB, were, if not open, at least not shut in your face. My first edition was an accurate reporting of facts, without any political allegations. What could they have objected to? For the second version, I contacted some people I couldn't get to before or of whose existence I had been unaware. I had a long interview with Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former head of the Soviet Union's Foreign Intelligence and later on of the whole KGB; Igor Prelin, former operative of internal counterintelligence dealing with Soviet intelligence officers; Valery Rechenski, who was Farewell's inmate in prison; and so on. All these people were much more at ease talking about the case the second time around because many of the officials involved had died, and because it looked more like pure history. My reason for not publishing my book in Russia was ultimately out of consideration for Farewell's family. His widow and son helped me a great deal in reconstructing his life, and I didn't want their acquaintances pointing and whispering about them after having read this book. In Russia, Farewell is not considered a hero, even if his work objectively helped bring about the end of the Communist regime.
Q: While conducting background research for his screenplay, Eric Raynaud uncovered new information that was used to expand the book. Is there one new detail he came across that you found particularly enlightening?
SK: Eric's information helped give the book a more consistent French point of view; forced me to modify some of my initial conclusions, which were probably too critical; and helped me to better see the international dimensions of the case. However, the information that was the most exciting to me was the relationship and conversations between Farewell and Patrick Ferrant. That was a huge contribution from Eric's side.
Q: In your opinion, what makes this account of Agent Farewell "the greatest spy story of the 20th century"? What will stick with readers?
SK: I'm convinced that Farewell's aims to destroy the KGB had a much greater impact than even he anticipated. The information he handed over to the West completely changed Western countries' view of the Soviet Union. They thought they could maintain a balance of power with the USSR through peaceful competition. But upon learning of the KGB's proficiency in stealing global technological secrets, they realized this wouldn't work. Whereas Carter and Nixon were partisans of détente, President Reagan didn't see things the same way. He wanted to defeat Communism, and Farewell gave him one of the most important arguments for this stance. But more simply, on a human level, Farewell is a fascinating story of an ordinary man who found himself in the right place at the right time and became an actor in making history.
Click on thumbnails for larger images
The only childhood photograph of Vetrov (left). Although a little shy in front of the camera, the boy has an inquiring look compared to his companion. Teenage Vetrov (right) with a teammate. A talented sprinter, he was considered an Olympic hopeful.Gifted intellectually, Vetrov was admitted to the prestigious Bauman Institute, Russia's leading engineering school.
The typical portrait of a secret agent. This picture was taken when Vetrov was a student at KGB School #101.Vetrov in Canada, having a friendly chat with a Soviet colleague over bourbon. But not a word about work: The men knew they were being watched closely by Canadian counterintelligence.The last known photo of Vladimir Ippolitovich Vetrov, taken in Lefortovo Prison, Moscow.
"The reader of this wonderful book from Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud is in for a treat: an introduction into what President Reagan described as the most significant spy story of the last century...[an] exciting voyage into the murky world of espionage and counterespionage." – Richard V. Allen, United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan
“Vetrov is 007’s opposite: a shambolic bear of a man, albeit with the requisite indestructible liver (and penchant for a basement quickie with the secretary).” – The Sunday Times
SUMMARY: Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you've ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else can -- its mystery, its beauty, its terrors, and the eerie silken rhythms that seduce one into believing anything -- even freedom -- is possible. Until the night Christopher Snow witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered secrets of Moonlight Bay and its strange inhabitants. A place, like all places, that looks a lot different after dark. If you think you've got it tough, meet Christopher Snow, the hero of Dean Koontz's novel Fear Nothing. Not only did his parents die under mysterious circumstances, but he's also being stalked by shadowy characters who want Snow to stop trying to find out how they died--or else they'll bump off his remaining loved ones (his supersmart, beer-lapping dog Orson; his best surfing buddy Bobby; and his late-night deejay girlfriend Sasha). And as if being on the lam in his own hometown, Moonlight Bay, California, isn't bad enough, Snow has to outrun his pursuers without leaving town. He has XP--xeroderma pigmentosum--a rare genetic affliction that forces him to avoid light. Cumulative exposure to sun, fluorescent lights, and the like will give him cancer eventually, and he doesn't dare leave the place where he's skillfully "done the mambo with melanoma" for all of his 28 years. Koontz makes the night-town of Moonlight Bay come alive in this sometimes pulse-pounding, sometimes funny, but mostly rather lyrical thriller. Fans of Koontz's legendary 1986 novel Watchers will love this book's similar theme: our hero and a loveable super-dog deal with a genetic engineering laboratory run amok. Horror fans will savor the evil mutant rhesus "millennium monkeys" who hunt Snow, the few scenes of eloquent gore, and the plight of certain mutating townsfolk who are, as they put it, "becoming" something very creepy. Koontz gives Snow and Bobby a lingo that does for surfer talk what Austin Powers did for the Swinging '60s, and his metaphors are almost as madcap as Tom Robbins's: "As the chains of the swinging light fixture torqued, the links twisted against one another with enough friction to cause an eerie ringing, as if lizard-eyed altar boys in blood-soaked cassocks and surplices were ringing the unmelodious bells of a satanic mass." Sometimes Koontz's style goes over the top and wipes out, surfer-style, but for the most part, Fear Nothing will have readers bellowing "Cowabunga!" YA-Christopher Snow understands the night. He, like the owl, is nocturnal, living on the mysterious darker edge of society. Snow is afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare and often-fatal genetic disease that makes ultraviolet rays-even those from lamps and televisions-deadly. His condition makes him a pariah in the isolated small town of Moonlight Bay where the ignorant and insensitive fear what they do not know. As the action begins, Snow's father dies, leaving him with only a handful of offbeat but fiercely loyal friends to turn to for understanding. At the morgue, Snow accidentally witnesses his father's body being replaced with the mutilated corpse of a vagrant. Before he can find out what is behind this scandal, he receives a frantic summons from a friend who is brutally murdered before she can finish explaining a strange story about monkeys and a secret project at the government compound at the edge of town. What begins as a disturbing puzzle quickly becomes a sinister conspiracy as Snow uncovers evidence of uncanny intelligence in many of the local animals and inhumanely vicious tendencies in some of the human residents of the Bay. They are "becoming" he learns, but becoming what? Chilling chase scenes steadily increase the breakneck pace as Snow, assisted by his remarkable dog, is pursued through the night by unseen forces. Despite some clunky and unnecessary surfer slang, fans will go wild for this well-plotted thriller. Robin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VA Bantam brags that it is launching the biggest Koontz campaign ever with this thriller, whose protagonist lives by night (he has a genetic order that makes him highly sensitive to light) until he witnesses a murder. length: (cm)17.8 width:(cm)10.7
Since World War II, the American public has become fully aware of the exploits of the 101st Airborne Division, the paratroopers who led the Allied invasions into Nazi-held Europe. But within the ranks of the 101st, a sub-unit attained legendary status at the time, its reputation persisting among veterans over the decades.
Primarily products of the Dustbowl and the Depression, the Filthy13 grew notorious, even within the ranks of the elite 101st. Never ones to salute an officer, or take a bath, this squad became singular within the Screaming Eagles for its hard drinking, and savage fighting skill—and that was only in training. Just prior to the invasion of Normandy, a "Stars and Stripes" photographer caught U.S. paratroopers with heads shaved into Mohawks, applying war paint to their faces. Unknown to the American public at the time, these men were the Filthy 13. After parachuting behind enemy lines in the dark hours before D-Day, the Germans got a taste of the reckless...
"You're not alone. You're never alone."
Charlie West has held on to that belief, but now he's starting to wonder. He went to bed one night an ordinary high-school kid. When he woke up, he was wanted for murder and hunted by a ruthless band of terrorists. He's been on the run ever since. Now he's stuck in prison, abandoned by his allies, trying desperately to stay a step ahead of vicious prison gangs and brutal guards. And a flash of returning memory tells him another terrorist strike is coming soon. A million people will die unless he does something. But what? He's stuck in a concrete cage with no way out and no one who can help. Charlie has never felt so alone-and yet he knows he can't give in or give up . . . not with the final hour ticking away.