Helen Macinnes – författare

He stared at the unfamiliar watch on his wrist. Three hours ago he had stood on English soil. Three hours ago he had been Martin Hearne, British Intelligence agent. Now he was in Nazi-occupied Brittany, posing as Bertrand Corlay. Hearne looked down at the faded uniform which had been Corlay's felt for the papers in the inside pocket. He was ready. From now on he was one step away from death...

Nothing could shake William Denning's resolve to leave the army and return to the States. Nothing, except one of the largest diamond hauls ever - which, in the wrong hands, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was a potentially lethal force. In the Swiss mountains, Denning discovered not only a jewellery robbery at stake, but a ruthless world of espionage and international conspiracy.

Nazi Germany, 1939. Von Aschenhausen sat on the edge of a large desk, his eyes fixed on the man standing over the girl roped to a chair. "You fool. You stupid little fool. Can't you see I must, I will find out? My patience is limited. Kurt, try some more of your persuasion." The girl felt a hand of iron on her aching shoulder. She struggled weakly against the ropes that held her, but they only cut deeper...

Just another routine overseas assignment. That's what successful young New York architect Ken Strang thought when a national travel magazine sent him to Europe to sketch Greek ruins.What he did not know, until it was too late, was that from the moment he boarded the ship, he had become the pawn in a murderous game of international intrigue.To Strang, danger was no object. He could take care of himself, but he had reckoned without Cecilia, his beautiful photographer. When he fell in love with her, he gave his enemies the one weapon they needed.

A young English girl's innocent holiday visit to Poland is suddenly twisted into a nightmare of violence and terror when she is mistaken for a Nazi spy.

After years of war, Paul Haydn was on his way home to New York at last, but he would never forget the tormented people of Berlin. They had survived the War - but now a new, sinister presence threatened them. Back home, he discovers that some of his former colleagues have dangerous political sympathies, and begins to realise why there is such interest in his counter-propaganda skills.

They were worlds apart. Sarah Bly, a sophisticated career woman on a chauffeur-driven tour of America with the wealthy Mrs Margaret Peel. Jim Brent, a tough, old-fashioned cowboy, ill at ease away from his rugged mountain ranch. Yet a wrong turn on a remote road in Wyoming unexpectedly brings them together. Can two such different people every really overcome their differences and give in to love?

American diplomat Payton Pleydell and his wife Sylvia are the most respected couple in Washington. Then the unexpected arrival of a Czech official threatens to bring the facade crashing down. Even after six years apart, Sylvia has not forgotten Jan Brovic, with whom she was once deeply in love. But former allies have become bitter enemies, and Sylvia must decide whether to risk everything to be with the man she loves.

A phone call prompts Bill Lammiter, a young American playwright, to follow a former girlfriend to Rome. There Lammiter saves a mysterious Italian girl from a beating and the fat is in the fire. A kidnapping, a battle in a Renaissance villa, a shrewd gamekeeper, a chance snapshot and a touring preppy contribute to the excitement and suspense of this Cold War thriller.

British soldier Peter Lennox, a POW in an Italian prison camp, is still fighting his own war. An artist in civilian life, his hands bear the scars of wounds received during his capture at the fall of Tobruk, and he suspects he will never paint again. The only thing that sustains him is plotting his escapes, no matter how many times he is recaptured. But in September 1943 the Italians surrender to the Allies, and Lennox is free. Wanting nothing more than to return to the fighting, he is instead assigned to the mountains of the South Tyrol as a liaison to a desperate band of resistance fighters.With little more than courage and knowledge of the local terrain, Lennox and his comrades must help pave the way for an Allied push that may change the course of the war.

While carrying out research in Paris, American historian John Craig is surprised when he runs into his old college professor. Sussman is a worried man. A survivor of Auschwitz, he in shock, having seen and been seen by one of the Nazis who tortured him in the camp. But SS Colonel Berg has been dead for ten years – or has he?  Before Craig can help solve the riddle, Sussman is found dead and Craig is being questioned by the police. As various international organisations are drawn into the hunt for Sussman’s killer, he realises that the ex-Nazi is far more than just a wanted war criminal.Soon Craig’s search for the truth takes him from Paris to the island of Mykonos, where he must unmask a dangerous and powerful foe.

Twenty-one years ago, with the Allies on their heels, the Nazis hid a sealed chest in the dark, forbidding waters of the Finstersee, a lake surrounded by the brooding peaks of the Austrian Alps. One of the few men who knows of its existence is Richard Bryant, a British agent. He sets out alone to discover the secret of the lake and unleashes a series of violent reactions - and violent deaths...

While on assignment in Paris and Venice, an American journalist works desperately to expose Communist espionage activities...Fenner burned Rosenfeld's message, reminding himself wryly that he was behaving in the very best tradition. This was a game not too difficult to learn, he thought. A game? A game in deadly earnest. Where, he wondered suddenly, would Venice lead?

After years of war, Ulysses finally returns to Ithaca. Rather than the joyous welcome he had hoped for, he finds his palace full of suitors, all scheming to possess his wife, and Penelope is wondering why it has taken him seven years to get home. Meanwhile Homer becomes increasingly irritated that they are not adhering to the plot of his new book, and the goddess Athena has had enough of irrational mortal behaviour.

A young woman escapes from Czechoslovakia and the clutches of her ruthless ex-husband, an officer in the secret police. Soon she realises that she has been allowed to defect, in the hope that she will lead the Communists to her father, a writer in hiding in the west. She and her American lover are now the targets of a terrifying hunt, one that can only end in death.

"That delay in the delivery of the message from Málaga could have been absolutely disastrous. As it was, there had been irreparable loss: an agent dead."Under the Mediterranean sun, a drama begins in a cafe in Málaga. For Ian Ferrier, an employee of the United States Space Agency on holiday to visit his old friend Jeff Reid, it means the startling discovery that Reid is not just a wine exporter, but rather engaged in smuggling communist defectors to the West. Events take a turn for the worse when Ferrier, a stranger to the deadly world of espionage, must take sole charge of a high-ranking KGB agent.Alone in an frighteningly alien landscape, he can afford no mistakes when choosing whom to trust...

David Bosworth and Penelope Lorrimer seem to have everything against them. He is a penniless Oxford undergraduate; she is the daughter of a well-to-do Edinburgh family. Nevertheless they defy the gulf between them, and the opposition they encounter draws them closer. But as the shadow of war creeps over Europe, there will be greater challenges before they can hope to be together.

Chuck Kelso is an idealist. When he steals a top-secret NATO memorandum, he only intends to leak it to the press; but it is soon in the hands of a Russian agent, a man who has spent nine years quietly working himself into the fabric of Washington society. Within hours it has reached the KGB, and the CIA’s top man in Moscow has had his cover blown. For British agent Tony Lawton, hunting down the Russian operative – the ‘agent in place’ – is a welcome challenge. But for Chuck’s brother, the journalist Tom Kelso, and his beautiful wife, Thea, the affair has unleashed a very special terror.Now the race is on to find the Russian spy before a top-level NATO conference. But why is the escaped agent behaving so strangely? Is he who he seems?

New York art expert Colin Grant takes on an easy commission: to travel to Vienna and bid on a priceless Old Master on behalf of a Texan millionaire. The painting has been smuggled out of Hungary by a defector, and Grant must get it at any cost, while keeping his employer’s name a secret. But all is not as it seems. No sooner has Grant landed in Austria than his seemingly simple assignment turns into a nightmare, as he finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy to unleash a wave of international terrorism. Grant must now navigate a hidden and terrifying world, as he and the woman he loves become pawns in a war between the secret armies of East and West.

Bob Renwick, founder of counter-terrorist agency Interintell, is handed a list of names, compiled by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm, intent on removing anyone in his way. To be on the list means death, and Renwick's name is third. On a desperate mission from New York to Djibouti, Renwick must unmask his nemesis to save all he holds dear.

When Karen Cornell, a beautiful journalist on assignment in Czechoslovakia, agrees to help a would-be defector by carrying top-secret documents to Washington, she is pulled into an astonishing web of terrorism, political assassination, blackmail, espionage, and treason in the highest levels of both superpowers. One false move could cost Karen her life-and throw the world into a violent war.

For Nina O'Connell, a trip round the world was the holiday of a lifetime. Travelling in a group, she is surprised when she runs into an old flame. But Bob Renwick is not there by chance. He is on the hunt for two terrorists who have left a trail of murder in their wake, and soon Nina is caught up in a grim game of life or death, from Bombay to Washington's political elite.