Vicious Circle

Wilbur Smith is the bestselling author of many novels, each meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His bestselling Courtney series includes Assegai, The Sound of Thunder, Birds of Prey, Monsoon, and Blue Horizon. His other books include River God, Warlock, The Seventh Scroll, and The Sunbird. His books are now translated into twenty-six languages and have sold over 120 million copies. Smith was born to a British family in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, in Central Africa, and attended Rhodes University in South Africa. He has homes in Cape Town, London, Switzerland, and Malta.

London security expert Hector Cross, now married to Hazel Bannock (seventh on Forbes magazine's list of the richest women in the world), continues his battle with Somali warlord Tippoo Tip in bestseller Smith's lurid sequel to 2011's Those in Peril. Early on, a Mercedes van driven by a man wearing a Richard Nixon mask deliberately broadsides the red Ferrari that Hazel is driving on her way home to Brandon Hall, the couple's 18th-century estate outside Winchester. After extensive sleuthing and a long backstory set in a prison, Hector tracks down the perpetrators of the attack to a hilltop fortress in tiny Kazundu, the poorest country on the African continent. Readers, especially new ones, should be prepared for descriptions of death in all its many gory possibilities, as well as scenes of rape (both hetero- and homosexual), child molestation, sexual slavery, and torture. The exciting action scenes and larger-than-life characters, though, will appeal to a broad range of thriller fans. Agent: Kevin Conroy Scott, Tibor Jones & Associates. (Oct.)