The Bleiberg Project by David Khara, translated from the French by Simon John, is a best-selling international thriller in its first English-language edition (available April 30, 2013.)

A Mossad agent, a CIA agent, and a Wall Street Trader walk into a bank. What happens next is no joke.

I loved this thriller. Written by former journalist David Khara, The Bleiberg Project, keeps you involved, whether you’re in the midst of a flashback to Nazi activities or following modern-day bad guys with links to some truly evil men from World War II.

Jay Novacek has more money than he’ll ever spend and he’s one of the unhappiest people on earth. One night of debauchery brought him a pain so deep it never leaves his conscious thoughts. Then, when two representatives from the United States Army show up to inform Jay of his father’s death, he finally has something to celebrate.

[So, not a happy childhood then...]

We all know the CIA, the KGB (FSB), the BND, the NSA. Acronyms for some of the world’s top intelligence agencies, they bring certain images to mind, whether it’s men in trench coats or James Bond look-alikes.

But what about where these men work? What do the agencies themselves look like? Last month Robert Beckhusen wrote about nine of these super secret spy bases for Wired magazine. Check out the photographs and decide—where would you like to work?

When it comes to eye-popping landscapes and city streets that evoke exotic, deadly intrigue, Hollywood’s go-to country for Asian locations may very well be Thailand. The kingdom boasts a variety of terrain—everything from thick jungles and vaulting limestone mountains to broad, bone-white beaches and chaotic, neon-drenched urban cores—as well as competent, relatively inexpensive movie crews.

That camera-friendly mix has been on display for nearly 40 years, ever since The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), the ninth installment of the James Bond franchise, filmed extensively in Thailand. There was the boat chase through the klongs (canals) of Bangkok, the karate school in nearby Samut Prakan province, but the real show-stopper was Scaramanga’s lair in the otherworldy archipelago of Phang-nga Bay on Thailand’s Andaman Sea coastline. The dramatic limestone island of Ko Khao Phing Kan lies about 20 miles northeast of Phuket and is notable for a massive section of rock that has cleanly sheared off—the result of thousands of years of undercutting erosion—and now leans against the remaining mountain. Punctuating the island’s small cove is the pillar of Koh Tapu (“Nail Island”), now commonly known as “James Bond Island” by every tour operator in Phuket.

[Can’t blame them for that...]

The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., has some incredible listening devices and transmitters in its collection: bugs that were planted in fake tree trunks, children’s toys, picture frames, and, of course, the good ol’ telephone receiver. (Remember those?) But none is quite as…erm…prosaic as the little number above: the Dog Doo Transmitter.

The museum describes it thusly:  “Issued by CIA, circa 1970. Effectively camouflaged, this homing beacon transmitted a radio signal that directed aircraft to locations for strikes or reconnaissance.”

Was someone in R&D having a laugh? Or was this the most ingenious concealment ever?

Photo courtesy of The International Spy Museum.

We all know how TV drama plots generally work: one step forward, two steps back. Both Carrie and Brody’s stories this week had a circular nature that seemed to be following that model—and then boom, we get a knock on the door in the episode’s final minutes that changes everything. The plot twist from the final moments of last week’s episode—Saul finding Brody’s video confession—pays off in a big way, one that has clear repercussions for everyone. Most shows would have sat on this, drawn it out for half a season or more, toying with our expectations of whether the intel would ever be revealed to our key players, or if Saul might be the mole while various contrivances kept him from going to Estes or Carrie with the damaging proof.

Thankfully, Homeland’s commitment to keeping up the show’s tension and momentum and taking risks prevented that from happening. But in a clever opening sequence, we think that might be the case. At the Beirut airport, Saul is detained and “officials”—likely paid off by the Hezbollah—rifle through his classified, diplomatically protected briefcase and find a memory card in the lining. Mandy Patinkin plays it off beautifully, visibly anxious and concerned…and then we cut to him on the airplane, where he stealthily removes the real card from a hidden compartment in the case. The scene also neatly seems to eliminate any possibility that Saul is a mole.

[Why do we call them moles when they are anything but blind?]

Kenneth Branagh, minus his stubble and scruffy Kurt Wallander togs, was photographed last week in Moscow on the set of Jack Ryan, a new thriller based on Tom Clancy’s CIA analyst hero. Sir Kenneth is directing and playing the main bad guy opposite Chris Pine, who stars as Jack Ryan early in his career. The cast also includes Keira Knightley and Kevin Costner. Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for his Schindler’s List screenplay, is listed as a writer for the film, which is expected to be in theaters December 2013.

Thank you, Digital Spy, for the sneak peek.

Spy in a Little Black Dress by Maxine Kenneth is the second book in the spy cozy series featuring Jacqueline Kennedy in her career as a spy before becoming first lady (available October 2, 2012).

When I first heard that there was a mystery series by Maxine Kenneth (the duo of Maxine Schnall and Ken Salikof) featuring none other than Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, I thought to myself, WTH?  How is that going to work? Surprisingly well, actually. It turns out that the authors were inspired by an actual letter found in the John F. Kennedy Library written by Jackie and revealing that she had a job offer from the newly formed CIA. Yes, that Jackie Kennedy. It appears that there was more to the lady than just the ability to wear a pillbox hat.

[We love a spy with style . . .]

They called it Operation Neptune Spear. Ordered by President Barack Obama, planned by the CIA and carried out by Navy SEALs, it resulted in the death of the most wanted man on the planet. Or did it?

I’m not convinced that Bin Laden was actually killed in that raid on the compound in Pakistan in May last year.

When I first started writing thrillers—almost a quarter of a century ago—the biggest villains in the U.K. were the IRA. But the advent of the Peace Process thankfully brought an end to the killings. The IRA are no longer a threat to the U.K., and so are no longer a viable source of thriller plots, though rogue splinter groups do make an appearance from time to time.

The fall of the Berlin Wall killed off a whole area of spy fiction, and when the Soviet Union fell apart writers such as John le Carre had to look around for a new villain. 

But when the Twin Towers fell and for the first time we heard the names al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, the world had a new enemy. Within months of 9-11, fiction featuring Islamic fundamentalist terrorists appeared in the stores and now it’s the staple of most thriller writers.

[You don’t need Bin Laden to make a terrorist thriller]

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[About the book...]

Probably because they are. In the latest news from Big Brother, Georgia Tech reveals a security research project called PRODIGAL—the Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats Using Graph Analysis and Learning—which has been built to scan IMs, texts and emails . . . and can read approximately a quarter billion of them a day.

Of course, they rush to assure people, this only works on a closed system, not on the Internet. But surely that’s just a matter of time.

So here’s your earworm for the weekend:

It’s been a while since we discussed the forthcoming movie Haywire, starring MMA fighter Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas. But now there’s a new trailer out, along with a great clip from an interview with Fassbender, who says of his fight with Carano:

I remember it clearly. She is supposed to pick up a vase and it breaks away, and the stunt guy said, “She’s going to grab it and hit you on the side of the head. But the one thing that’s important as she swings toward your head is you don’t look at her. You turn your head away and take the hit.” I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.

"Of course, Gina picked up the vase and I looked right at it. It was like a camera bulb had gone off.

Fassbender insists he wasn’t seriously hurt, for which we are all thankful!  Although you don’t get to see the vase bit, you can check out some of the action in the new trailer below:

For Cliff St. James, the hard-hitting PI (literally: he dabbles in mixed martial arts on the side) in Kovacs’s debut, life has a dividing line. There’s before the Storm and after. Since he lives in New Orleans (“Nu-whohr-lins” for those of us who use books to brush up on our regional accents), it almost seems like an insult call said Storm “Hurricane Katrina.” The “K” word is barely uttered. That’s what outsiders say, people who watched the disaster unfold on TV, not the ones who still live without electricity, some in FEMA trailers, some in patched-together houses that were, only five months before we meet Cliff, submerged in water tainted with sewage and enough bacteria to leave swatches of mold in its wake. But all of this, coupled with the police department’s barely 20% solve rate for homicides, is part of the New Normal. And just as the perpetually damp buildings are prime breeding grounds for mold and decay, the struggling city is ripe for crime.

[Welcome to New Orleans...]

So last week, Tara Gelsomino posted here on Criminal Element about Homeland on Showtime. I’d never heard of the show before, but her recap sounded so fascinating I thought I’d give it a shot.  Which, let me tell you, was a huge mistake.  Because I sat down in front of the television for four hours on Saturday and another three on Sunday.

All I can say is this: if you’re not watching this show, you should be. The storytelling is intense, the characters are all severely damaged (what, doesn’t everyone like damaged characters?) and the acting is fantastic. I am a sucker for the unreliable narrator, and neither Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) nor Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is really dependable. At first, you think it’s Brody who’s apt to be lying, but after six episodes, I was beginning to think Carrie was a whole lot more likely to betray not only her friends and family, but even herself and the viewer. 

And then I watched last night’s show, and everything changed...again.

I cannot stress this enough: if you get a chance, catch this show!

So maybe that movie Minority Report was on to something. Sure, they used psychics to predict crimes, but they got results, right? What if our police could detect threats well in advance and stop criminals before they act? Well the Department of Homeland Security may have found a way.

The DHS has begun testing a program they call FAST (Future Attribute Screening Technology). The program is designed to tracks the actions of volunteer citizens and us an algorithm to predict criminal action by looking for signs of hostility.  Right now, they are keeping all info confidential and all that, but this raises a ton of questions in regard to crime and the execution thereof. Where do you draw the line between criminal and innocent? How much does intent factor into what makes a criminal criminal? It’s only a matter of time before this gets used at the local level if the test proves successful. So when do you make the arrest? Thoughts?

Hat Tip: Gizmodo

As any romantic suspense reader worth her salt will tell you, some branches of law enforcement get more love than others when it comes time for hero building. But thanks to the magic of blogging, this reader can and will build her own all-star team of romantic suspense heroes. A team representing more than just the most popular branches of law enforcement. Because what are all-star teams for if not to give recognition to those players who toil tirelessly on the field, but don’t always get the glory they deserve?

[Who are these top cops?]

Next week, network TV executives will converge on New York City to announce their new fall TV schedules.

More than 80 new pilots are currently being screened and selected to join returning favorite shows, and here’s a glimpse at a few of the criminally inclined that we’re hoping to see on the boob tube come September:

[The captain has turned on the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign.]