Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Dragon Head, an Action Thriller by James Houston Turner (1 April 2020, Regis Books, 417 pages). This is the fourth book in the Aleksandr Talanov Thrillers series.
Don't miss our interview with author James Houston Turner.PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and the Kindle Cloud Reader Preview below, as well as full details of the series.
Dragon Head is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.
Author James Houston Turner will be awarding a $20 Amazon gift card, and six copies of the book to randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).
|| Synopsis || Teaser: KCR Preview || The Series || Author Q&A || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||
Synopsis
One-and-a-half billion dollars vanishes out of a numbered account into a cyberspace maze. But the thief who stole it lies dead on the tracks of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway, his access codes having perished with him.If it were simply a matter of missing money, the United States would not be concerned. But a Hong Kong crime boss named Dragon Head wants the money to fund an army of hackers, one of whom has already penetrated America’s GPS network. The result: a midair collision that kills more than a thousand people.
With national security at stake, the Director of National Intelligence becomes very interested in the whereabouts of that money. He wants the funds to remain lost. But Dragon Head wants them found. And Colonel Aleksandr Talanov is caught in the middle.
Both sides believe Talanov knows where the money is. But Talanov doesn’t have a clue. So both sides threaten to kill his closest friends unless he locates and surrenders the money. It’s an impossible situation when impossible is not an option, because whatever choice Talanov makes, someone will die.
The Series: Aleksandr Talanov Thrillers
|| [1] || [2] || [3] ||Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
Department Thirteen [1]
Department Thirteen – the assassination and sabotage unit of the KGB – never officially existed. But former KGB colonel Aleksandr Talanov knows that it did, and it’s but one of the many secrets he’s worked hard to forget.
Now living in Australia, Talanov and dozens of dinner guests are suddenly the target of assassins. On a midnight stroll to the beach, Talanov and his wife are mistakenly spared, but soon find themselves running for their lives: hunted by the killers, blamed by the police, increasingly pivotal to an invisible network of death about which they know nothing.
But someone thinks they know.
For in 1983, a second Department Thirteen was created, and Talanov discovers they have but one purpose: to kill him, whatever the cost.
[First published 1 September 2011; this revised and updated edition 10 March 2020, 410 pages]
Greco's Game [2]
Colonel Aleksandr Talanov – the “ice man” – is married to a woman he wishes he could love. But he can’t, and it’s an ugly consequence of his training with the KGB. Even so, no one should have to experience what Talanov experiences: the brutal murder of his wife in front of his eyes.
Wracked with guilt and suspected of plotting her death, Talanov spirals downward on a path of self-destruction. He should have been killed, not her. He was the one whose violent past would not leave them alone. Months tick by and Talanov hits rock bottom on the mean streets of Los Angeles, where he meets a hooker named Larisa, who drugs and robs him.
But in the seedy world of human trafficking ruled by the Russian mafia, Larisa made the mistake of stealing the ice man’s wallet. In it was Talanov’s sole possession of value: his wedding photo. Talanov tracks Larisa down to get that photo because it reminds him of everything that should have been but never was, and never would be because an assassin’s bullet had mistakenly killed his wife.
Or was it a mistake?
The answer lies in Greco’s Game, a chess match played in 1619 that is famous for its queen sacrifice and checkmate in only eight moves. In an unusual alliance, Talanov and Larisa team up to begin unraveling the mystery of what Talanov’s old KGB chess instructor regarded as the most brilliant example of how to trap and kill an opponent. The question is: who was the target?
[First published 25 July 2012; this revised edition 26 September 2017, 283 pages]
November Echo [3]
Every spy has a beginning, and for Colonel Aleksandr Talanov of the KGB, that moment occurs one summery night in 1985 on the Costa del Sol, at the height of Cold War tensions between the Americans and Soviets.
As a signatory to the Biological Weapons Treaty of 1972, the United States had already destroyed its military stockpiles of weaponized pathogens. The Soviet Union, however, responded differently to the signing of that treaty. They created a network of forty-seven top-secret production facilities spread across Russia. Called Biopreparat, it was the largest biological weapons program in history.
So when a scientist from one of those facilities decides to defect, Talanov has the assigned task of bringing him back. But after tracking the scientist and his family to Spain, Talanov is betrayed and the scientist and his family are murdered.
The only survivor is their teenage daughter, Noya -- short for Noyabŕ -- in English, "November" -- and what happens in an impulsive moment changes the course of Talanov's life by placing him in a desperate race to save Noya from the deadliest and most vicious adversary he will ever encounter: the KGB.
[Published 24 October 2013, 301 pages]
About the Author
Winner of numerous awards, including "Best Thriller," bestselling author James Houston Turner is known for his Aleksandr Talanov series of spy novels. Talanov the fictional character was inspired by the actual KGB agent who once leaked word out of Moscow that James was on a KGB watchlist for his smuggling activities behind the old Iron Curtain. "His act of heroism – he could have been executed for what he did – gave me the idea of a good-guy KGB agent who became a spy for America," Turner explains.
A native of Kansas, James Houston Turner has been writing since he was ten. After earning his bachelor's degree from Baker University, he moved to Texas, where he earned his master's degree from the University of Houston (Clear Lake). He then headed west to California, where his love of writing turned into a profession with publication of The Spud Book: 101 Ways to Cook Potatoes. Publisher's Weekly called it "A cookbook with ap-peel." Between TV cooking tours, he worked as a journalist at the famed Los Angeles Union Rescue Mission, where he revised their magazine, Lifeline, from a needs-based ministry appeal to a collection of interviews from the streets about changed lives. Those interviews included numerous victims of human trafficking. The magazine won several awards.
During this time, James also worked as a smuggler into Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe, where he transported tons of food, clothing, Bibles, and medical supplies, to needy hospitals and churches. While there, he interviewed many heroes of death camps, gulags, Siberian exile, persecution, illness, hardship, and torture, including assassination squads.
James is also a cancer survivor after doctors in Australia removed a tumor the size of an orange from his face. "I was told if I lived eighteen months I would probably live to be one hundred. That was in 1991, so I am happy to report I am well on my way toward that goal. These experiences continue to influence my storytelling, whether in novels, or, now, in film. My stories are 'overcomer stories,' because that's what I've had to do, and is why I want my stories to leave people with the same hope and faith that strengthened me."
As a self-published author who made the deliberate choice away from traditional avenues, he has accomplished what he calls "the writer's dream" with a film option on one of his novels, Greco's Game. He is also one of a small handful of writers who can function both as a novelist and a screenwriter, with two of his screenplays having also been optioned, with production on his projects scheduled to begin in 2020.
After nearly twenty years in Australia, James and his wife, Wendy, now live in Austin, Texas.
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Giveaway and Tour Stops
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I remember the day I got word that I was being followed by the KGB ... while living in San Diego! As you know, word came to me from an actual good-guy KGB agent through a network of secret contacts with whom I had worked behind the old Iron Curtain of then-Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe. So I am really appreciative you featured all of my books to-date that feature the character born from that agent. Thank you SO much for having me on your site.
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