Paul Samson

On a deserted road in Calabria, Greek aid worker Anastasia Cristakos is driving alone to visit one of the new refugee centers funded by billionaire Denis Hisami, whom she has recently married. She slows down to greet two African migrants she recognizes. Too late she realizes they are not her friends. This is an ambush. She manages a desperate phone call to Hisami before her Mafia kidnappers silence her with a powerful drug. Hours later she wakes up in the pitch dark on a container ship, powering eastwards across the Mediterranean. Anastasia has been abducted and held hostage because Hisami has explosive information that his enemies have killed for and will kill for again. But Hisami can do nothing to save his wife. His time as a commander with the Kurdish Peshmerga has caught up with him. The U.S. authorities have seized his passport and jailed him for possible terrorist activities in the past. For all his wealth, he is powerless. Only one man can help him. Paul Samson, former MI6 agent and a genius at tracking missing persons. He's the obvious choice. There's only one snag. Samson was, and probably still is, in love with Anastasia. If he manages to locate and save her, will it be for Hisami-or himself?

Paul Samson is living in London and picking up some extra work for a private security company when he is almost killed by a thuggish assassin while tailing a mysterious and gifted young employee of a powerful environmental NGO. The murder of legendary spy Robert Harland, the poisoning of billionaire philanthropist Denis Hisami with a neurotoxin in the United States House of Representatives, and a second attempt on Samson's own life send him on the run to Estonia to figure out who is trying to kill him, and why. Anastasia leaves her comatose husband Denis in the US to join Samson in Estonia and help him get to the bottom of things. Soon it becomes clear that Denis and Harland were running an investigation into a spectral former Stasi agent and her sprawling network of assets across industry and government in the US and the UK when they were attacked. Samson and Anastasia must tap into their research and expose the spymaster before any more people are killed or agencies compromised. An astonishing and timely thriller examining the penetration of Russian assets into all levels of western life, The Old Enemy is a complex, breathtaking race against time from "one of our most accomplished thriller writers," (Financial Times).