On July 21, 2020, Lord Alexander Hawke, the sixth-richest man in England and one of the thriller genre’s most beloved heroes, returns to action in Dragonfire, the latest must-read novel from New York Times bestselling author Ted Bell.
Dragonfire will be Bell’s 11th Hawke book to date (he also wrote two bestselling YA books, Nick of Time and The Time Pirate), and his first as part of a new publishing deal with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin, after moving over from William Morrow (HarperCollins) earlier this year.
Hawke, of course, was last seen squaring off with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the hit 2018 thriller Overkill, a plot that featured Hawke’s only child being abducted by Putin—who desperately wanted to distract Alex from a sinister plot he’d hatched to reclaim his seat among the most powerful rulers in the world after a temporary fall from grace left him on the outside looking in. That book also introduced another villain, the murderous Mr. Smith, and featured the most jaw-dropping cliffhanger ending of Bell’s writing career.
Now, Hawke is set to return, and this time around, he’s been tasked with finding the Queen’s missing grandson.
“Hawke is back in the Bahamas,” said Bell exclusively to The Real Book Spy, “on her majesty’s secret service, reporting directly to the Queen. A member of the Royal Service family has disappeared while on Holiday there, believed to be in the hands of a Chinese mafia family who threaten his life . . . Hawke must find him first.”
Check out the official cover art and plot details below.
Alex Hawke, British lord, and gentleman spy, is looking for the Queen’s missing grandson, whose disappearance may be the culmination of a plot almost a century old in this breathtaking new adventure from New York Times bestselling novelist Ted Bell.
December 8, 1941, Washington, D.C.
The new Chinese ambassador to the United States, Tiger Tang, meets with President Roosevelt one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, China and the U.S. will be wartime allies, but the charming, sophisticated ambassador may be playing his own treacherous game.
Tiger’s new friend, a Royal Navy attache and the British commander of a Top Secret team of daring saboteurs, working for Churchill to wreak bloody havoc on the Nazis behind
enemy lines, leaves his fiancée in the care of Tiger when he returns to England to
undertake his most daring scheme yet, comes home to find her in Tiger’s arms.
Clearly not a chap to be trusted….
Today, Bermuda
Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a battle with a malevolent enemy. His recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her favorite grandson, Henry, has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen in at the exclusive Dragonfire nightclub which is owned by the nefarious Tang Brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.
Ted Bell is the former chairman of the board and creative director of Young & Rubicam, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Hawke series as well as the YA adventure novels Nick of Time and The Time Pirate. He has recently been writer-in-residence at Cambridge University (U.K.) and visiting scholar at the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Fans excited for the return of Alex Hawke can already pre-order Dragonfire here, or anywhere else books are sold.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance developmental editor and pens a monthly thriller column for CrimeReads. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.