THE NEW LUKE CARLTON THRILLER. 'Couldn't put it down. It boggles my mind, it's so good!' AVA GLASS, author of The Hiding Season 'Another corker . . . Gardner is a worthy successor to the late, great Frederick Forsyth . . . absolutely stirring stuff. 9/10' EXPRESS 'Gardner's up-to-the-minute thrillers combine authentic tradecraft, geopolitical insight and page-turning suspense.' CHARLES CUMMING MI6 operative Luke Carlton returns in his most exciting and unnervingly up-to-the-minute mission yet . . . it's the new edge-of-your-seat spy thriller from the bestselling author. In the dying light of an Arctic afternoon a monstrous black shape slips beneath the waters of Murmansk bay. Murmansk in the Arctic Circle is where Russia's fleet of nuclear-powered submarines is based - and the Novorossiya is one of their navy's most advanced - and dangerous - vessels . . . Acting on information received from a high-ranking mole deep inside Russia's FSB, Britain's security services are convinced that the submarine is about to deploy a terrifying, game-changing device. As Europe goes into a state of high alert, MI6 operative Luke Carlton is sent into the hot zone that is the Finnish-Russian border. His mission to secure the safe extraction of this valuable MI6 asset and the intel he has in his possession - because it seems the West could be staring Armageddon in the face. It's then that things start to go devastatingly wrong . . . Breathlessly exciting, brilliantly authentic and unnervingly prescient, Ballistic is the new Luke Carlton thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author and journalist who has his finger on the pulse of 21st century geo-politics and knows where the dangerous flashpoints are likely to be . . . Praise for Frank Gardner's other Luke Carlton thrillers: 'Tensions rise to boiling point . . . Gardner cuts to the molten core of a modern flashpoint in an electric thriller.' SUN 'Fast, taught, tense, accurate. A terrific read.' FREDERICK FORSYTH 'Thriller-writing of the highest order . . . Gardner steadily ratchets up the tension, peppering the narrative with nuggets of expertise.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Full of tomorrow's headlines . . . this is intelligent, high-voltage storytelling of the very highest order.' TONY PARSONS 'Confirms Frank Gardner's place among the pantheon of distinguished reporters who have become excellent thriller writers, including Gerald Seymour and Frederick Forsyth . . . utterly authentic.' DAILY MAIL 'Combines insider knowledge with heart-in-mouth excitement.' i-NEWSPAPER 'Everything is impressive in this masterly account . . . exhilarating (if alarming) topicality.' SUNDAY TIMES

Portrait

Born in 1961, Frank Gardner has been the BBC's Security Correspondent since 2002. He holds a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies. In 2004, while filming in Saudi Arabia, he was ambushed by terrorists, shot multiple times and left for dead. He survived and returned to active news reporting within a year. Although paralysed in the legs, he still travels extensively, reporting from Ukraine to Colombia to Saudi Arabia. Awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to journalism, Frank published his bestselling memoir, Blood and Sand, in 2006. His first novel, the thriller Crisis, which introduced readers to SIS operative Luke Carlton, was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. The second and third Luke Carlton thrillers, Ultimatum and Outbreak, were also bestsellers, as was the fourth, the Taiwan-set Invasion. Frank Gardner lives in London.