A Reluctant Spy

  • Crime; Thriller

  • September 2024

    • World Rights: Headline

Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly.

But he has a secret...since the age of 23, he's had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access.

When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it's swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who's supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent.

Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover.

Can Jamie play himself well enough to avoid being killed - and to avert a lethal global conflict?

Selected Praise

Smart, riveting and eerily prescient.
— Sunyi Dean, bestselling author of The Book Eaters
A brilliant high concept, fast-moving and impeccably told. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
— Anthony Johnston, author of The Dog Sitter Detective
A Reluctant Spy hits the ground running and never lets up. Clever, witty and all too believable; it’s in the very top tier of espionage fiction
— M. W. Craven, Sunday Times Bestselling author of the Washington Poe series