About this item
In this exciting international thriller featuring Japanese antiques art dealer and PI Jim Brodie, a double-murder at the Kennedy Center forces Brodie into a dangerous game of espionage - putting him in the crosshairs of the Chinese, North Korean, and American governments.Jim Brodie is an antiques dealer, Japan expert, and second-generation private investigator. When two theater friends are murdered backstage at a Kennedy Center performance in Washington, DC, he's devastated - and determined to hunt down the killer. He's not the only one. After the attack, Brodie is summoned to the White House. The First Lady was the college roommate of one of the victims, and she enlists Brodie - off the books - to use his Japanese connections to track down the assassin. Homeland Security head Tom Swelley is furious that the White House is meddling and wants Brodie off the case. Why? For the same reason a master Chinese spy known only as Zhou, one of the most dangerous men alive, appears on the scene: Those murders were no random act of violence. Brodie flies to Tokyo to attend the second of two funerals, when his friend's daughter Anna is kidnapped during the ceremony. It is then Brodie realizes that the murders were simply bait to draw her out of hiding. Anna, it seems, is the key architect of a top-secret NSA program that gathers the personal secrets of America's most influential leaders. Secrets so damaging that North Korea and China will stop at nothing to get them. Publishers Weekly said, "Readers will want to see more of the talented Jim Brodie," and The Spy Across the Table is an edge-of-your-seat thriller in Barry Lancet's wildly popular and highly acclaimed series.
About the Author
THE SPY ACROSS THE TABLE will be the next book in Barry Lancet's award-winning, international suspense series featuring Jim Brodie. The series opened with JAPANTOWN, which won the Barry Award for "Best First Mystery Novel" and was selected as a "Best Debut of the Year" by Suspense Magazine and several mystery/thriller roundups. TOKYO KILL, the second book in the series, was a finalist for a Shamus Award for "Best Novel of the Year." The third book in the series, PACIFIC BURN, covered, among other things, the controversial nuclear meltdown in Japan, after the horrendous quake and tsunami.
Lancet is an expat Californian who makes his home in Tokyo, though he visits the States often. His connection with Japan began more than twenty-five years ago with a short exploratory trip from his California home to Tokyo. Five years later his visit turned into a long-term stay in the Japanese capital, a thriving metropolis he found endlessly fascinating.
Lancet landed a position at one of the country's top publishing houses, and in twenty-five years he developed numerous books across many fields but mostly on Japanese culture--including art, crafts, cuisine, history, fiction, Zen gardens, martial arts, Asian philosophy, and more. All of which were sold in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. The work opened doors to many traditional worlds, lending a unique insider's view to his own writing.
One incident in particular started him on his present course of writing, and led to JAPANTOWN and the Jim Brodie series. Early on during his return to Japan, Lancet was directed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to come down to the stationhouse for a "voluntary interview." The MPD proceeded to interrogate him for three hours over what turned out to be a minor, noncriminal infraction.
The police grilling evolved into one of the most intensive psychological battles of cat-and-mouse Lancet had faced up to that point in his stay in Asia, and caused him to view many of his experiences, past and future, in a whole new light. The encounter was also instrumental in shaping Lancet's approach to his novels.