Bernard Besson is a former top-level chief of staff of the French intelligence services, an eminent specialist in economic intelligence and Honorary General Controller of the French National Police. He was involved in dismantling Soviet spy rings in France and Western Europe when the USSR fell and has real inside knowledge from his work auditing intelligence services and the police. He is the author of many acclaimed thrillers, including Chromosomes, Les Eaux d’Hammourabi, L’Imam bleu and, recently, Main basse sur l’Occident (2010) and Groenland (to be published in English by Lefrenchbook.com).

Orly Airport, Paris: Incognito, a man is meeting the Kuala-Lumpur-Paris flight. He is Malaysia’s former president. Despite a computer glitch, the plane lands — only to go up in  flames seconds later. General panic ensues as the fire spreads to the terminal. The former president walks up to his bodyguards, who thought he was on the plane. A few days  later, the former president is found dead from hanging, at his home. Suicide, apparently.
The chief of the French secret service has John Spencer Larivière — a former secret serviceman who has set up his own agency — investigate the case discreetly with the assistance of his partner, Victoire Augagneur.
The dead man’s widow, Bérénice, gives them her husband’s mobile phone; at the same time, thanks to an infrared camera, they discover that the dead man was not alone when he allegedly committed suicide.
The investigation soon leads Larivière and Augagneur to an international, U.N.-affiliated organisation whose task is to regulate all sales and acquisitions of rare earth metals on the planet. The project was initiated by the dead man, and his son-in-law works for the organisation, whose central trading offices are in Malaysia.

• Economic wars over rare-earth metals, against a backdrop of traders, international corruption, control of precious metals.
• In his distinctive hard-hitting style, Bernard Besson takes us from Paris to Malaysia plunging us into the sinister reality of contemporary political and economic espionage.
• This expert in Economic Intelligence masters a clever and subtle plot for a gripping page-turner thriller.