Michael Frost Beckner – författare

"A thinking man''s thriller... A real adrenaline blast... I loved it!" ROBERT REDFORD, Spy Game

Tom Bishop: "You don''t just trade these people like they''re baseball cards! It''s not a game!"

Nathan Muir: "That''s exactly what it is and it''s no kid''s game either. This is a whole other game. And it''s serious. And it''s dangerous. And it''s not one you want to lose."

It''s 48 hours before the events of the movie classic Spy Game and Nathan Muir is about to see his world implode...

Who''d want to assassinate Charlie March? The original Cold War hero. Mentor, brother, confessor-in-chief to Nathan Muir, he''s the spy who waltzed in from the cold and wrote a bestseller in the Florida sunshine.

But when a bomb on his yacht puts Charlie March on ice, and his dying words implicate Muir, the CIA dispatches hard-luck Agency lawyer Russell Aiken to force Muir''s confession and bury forty years of dirty secrets. By legal means...or otherwise.

"A chilling, inspired espionage thriller." EDITOR''S PICK Publishers Weekly

​​​​​​​The protégé Muir cast aside in favor of Tom Bishop, Aiken thirsts for payback unaware that Muir launched a different kind of game for him and Bishop long ago, and Aiken has one night to learn its rules, plays, and deadly stakes.

"A chess game...laid out in the real world of espionage." BRAD PITT, Spy Game

Buy Now and return to the world of Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop but be warned: in Spy Game "It''s not how you play the game... It''s how the game plays you."

"Laced with absurdity & stylistically daring... Beckner''s a razzle-dazzle showman at the top of the thriller heap." EDITOR''S PICK, Publishers Weekly

"Brilliantly executed...these are first-class spy novels with a smart, gritty atmosphere." - CHARLES CUMMING, New York Times & Sunday Times Best-selling Author of KENNEDY 35 and BOX 88

"With an interior, absurdist monologue worthy of Vonnegut...Bishop''s Endgame bears the unmistakable stamp of unprecedented mastery." ALEX ABELLA, New York Times Notable Author & Emmy Award-winning journalist

Tom Bishop: All right, so what else? What else do I need to know?

Nathan Muir: Put away some money so you can die someplace warm. And don''t ever touch it. Not for anyone. Ever.

Bishop: Okay, is that it?

Nathan Muir: Don''t ever risk your life for an asset. If it comes down to you or them...send flowers.

Ten years have passed since Nathan Muir rescued Tom Bishop from a Suzhou Prison and escaped the CIA for good. Now, all his former agents have suddenly vanished leaving the CIA blinded around the globe.

Then a coded message comes in from Malaysia with astonishing news: a lone spy has survived the mysterious purge. There''s just one catch. He''ll only reveal himself to the man Langley trusts less and despises more than Nathan Muir: Tom Bishop...

"Startling secrets... Double crossings... Explosive action... A marvelous narrator ignites an engaging story of spies, deceit, and murky history." KIRKUS REVIEWS

2023 BRONZE MEDAL WINNER - BEST SUSPENSE THRILLER - IPPY Awards

"A mesmerizing, sophisticated and hugely successful espionage novel that echoes - and even rivals - Conrad''s Heart of Darkness." Best Thrillers Reviews

"A chess game...laid out in the real world of espionage." BRAD PITT, Spy Game

Told by remarkably hapless but doggedly faithful CIA lawyer Russell Aiken, in Bishop''s Endgame, Tom Bishop and Nathan Muir will have their final face-off along a border between two countries, two centuries, two world orders; between life and death and two versions of themselves: who they want to be and who the Spy Game makes them.

"A thinking man''s thriller... A real adrenaline blast... I loved it!" ROBERT REDFORD, Spy Game

Buy Now and return to the world of Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop but be warned: in Spy Game, "It''s not how you play the game... It''s how the game plays you."

"Freighted with moral, philosophical weight, Aiken in Check pits the restless, free-associating mind of its CIA narrator, Russell Aiken, against the Agency itself in this epic climax of the Spy Game Trilogy that thrills as it digs deep." EDITOR''S PICK Publisher''s Weekly

"Brilliantly executed...these are first-class spy novels with a smart, gritty atmosphere." - CHARLES CUMMING, New York Times & Sunday Times Best-selling Author of KENNEDY 35 and BOX 88

Gladys: Feeling a little paranoid on our last day?

Nathan Muir: When did Noah build the ark, Gladys? Before the rain, before the rain.

Love or country? To save one you must sacrifice the other... The epic climax to the Aiken Trilogy rooted in the Robert Redford/Brad Pitt film Spy Game, it''s the question faced by Nathan Muir protégé Russell Aiken when he defects to Cuba.

Haunted by the ghosts of past, present, and future spies, Aiken is trapped in a lethal battle with Havana intelligence officers desperate to discover the CIA''s top spy hidden inside Fidel Castro''s government.

Aiken must betray Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop-exposing CIA operations that link Cuba, China, and Venezuela in a startling conspiracy-in order to rescue the woman he loves...all in a single night without leaving the hotel room of his interrogation.

2023 FINALIST, BEST THRILLER AWARDS "Aiken in Check is one of the year''s best spy thrillers." - BestThrillers

"Reading Beckner''s Spy Game saga is like seeing Picasso''s Guernica for the first time. A Cubist deconstruction of the spy trade coupled with an interior absurdist monologue worthy of Vonnegut." Alex Abella, New York Times Notable Author & Emmy Award-winning journalist

"It''s policy versus heart... Will challenge you in ways you haven''t been challenged before." TONY SCOTT director of Spy Game

Bursting with Aiken''s wit and erstwhile confusion, Aiken in Check is a love letter confession, wrapped in the haunting of three spies'' dangerous past, on a mind-bending, time-twisting, betrayal-baiting Christmas Eve that by dawn will see him lose everything or become the grandmaster of the Spy Game.

"A thinking man''s thriller... A real adrenaline blast... I loved it!" ROBERT REDFORD, Spy Game

"The moral ambiguities of John le Carré, the technical precision of Tom Clancy, and the violent impact of Robert Ludlum." The US Review of Books

Buy Now and return to the world of Nathan Muir and Tom Bishop, but be warned: in the Spy Game, "It''s not how you play the game... It''s how the game plays you."

America is under attack from within. A nation divided on every issue. Across the land, political, social, and racial intolerance increasingly turns to violence...

VOLUME 2: JULY 1862 - 1863

From the Battle of Second Manassas to Chattanooga

A NATION DIVIDED is a three-volume collection of the celebrated original teleplays for an Event Miniseries of the American Civil War. Bringing to life the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, the series thrives upon the personal relationships of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and their generals. Schoolmates and friends at West Point, they forge a brotherhood in battle fighting side-by-side in Mexico and create blood ties in peace as they marry into each other''s families.

"The incomparable A Nation Divided [is] one of the greatest Civil War dramas ever written." Jeff Sagansky, former President Sony Pictures, CBS Entertainment, & Tri-Star Pictures

With the onset of Civil War, forced to choose sides North and South, our "Band of Generals" and their families must face one another in battle over the soul of their nation.

A NATION DIVIDED focuses on the emotional landscape of these men, their wives, and children, and the men and women of color who live and fight alongside them.

"American history as it should be seen and understood... Riveting...often appalling...somehow uplifting. Going to transform American''s understanding of the Civil War." Thomas Fleming, international bestselling author and historian

 Their loyalties, loves, and brutalities are put to the bloody test across the battlefields of five Aprils against the moment they live in and the future they are fighting to create.

Some friendships dissolve into hatred; some families are torn apart by heartbreak; some enemies find grace in forgiveness. Yet, at the end of the bloodiest conflict in our history, the color barrier between black and white in America is transformed, freedom prevails, and the nation reunites to become an enduring beacon of hope to the world.

"Unforgettable! One of the best miniseries I''ve ever read." Mark Burnett-Emmy winning producer and MGM Television Chairman