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by Lawrence Dunning (Author)
In this sprawling novel of suspense and terror, a ruthless professional killer, a disillusioned career spy, and a beautiful Sorbonne professor cross paths with Moscow intelligence. They are all in a race to find the fabled Romanov jewels, smuggled out of Russia a century ago and secreted inside the Statue of Liberty before it was shipped from France to New York. The scene shifts compellingly from the present-day United Nations building to the Czarist Russia of Alexander II, the elegant boulevards of Paris and the sun-drenched Cote d'Azur, and ends in a spectacle of violence at America's shining symbol of freedom standing in New York Harbor.
The international hunt is interwoven with the efforts of Paris-based CIA agent Martin Toberts, his new-found love Solange Cordier who holds a secret more than a hundred years old, and his bloody-minded nemesis Pell Bruckner, a rogue agent intent on only one thing--satisfying his lust for personal wealth--at the expense of anyone or anything that stands in his way. It is, finally, a story of staggering wealth secreted in a place no one can believe, causing individuals and nations to kill for it and, in some cases, die for it.Author Biography
Lawrence Dunning has been writing and selling fiction--novels and short stories--for most of his adult life. He has three espionage/suspense novels: Neutron Two Is Critical (republished as Fallout!), Keller's Bomb, and Taking Liberty. A Hollywood talent agency expressed interest in the film rights to Taking Liberty based on a review in Publishers Weekly. He has published some 30 short stories in literary journals, and just recently a collection of his short stories, Rondo and Fugue for Two Pianos. Along the way he has garnered various awards for his writing, among them three Colorado Authors' League short-story awards. Two of his stories were named in the annual Best American Short Stories list of the 100 best stories published during the year. In addition to writing fiction he has at various times worked for the Dutch government in New York, an international oil publication, and the Department of Defense. He lives in Colorado.
