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This page lists novels by Michael Hartland.

Michael Hartland was the pen name used by Micahel James for a series of spy novels. An additional novel published using the pen name Ruth Carrington is also included.

Cover images are, when possible, of the UK first edition and a more recent digital edition.

By Michael Hartland:
- novels (Michael Hartland)
- novels (Ruth Carrington)

Down Among the Dead Men

Michael Hartland

1983

A David Nairn novel.

"High in the Himalayas, a renegade Chinese agent is brutally murdered while trying to reach the British Embassy in Kathmandu. A Triad revenge killing? Or does the mutilated corpse point to sinister espionage activity that might set the powder-keg of South East Asia ablaze? SIS China-watcher David Nairn sends vulnerable Ruth Ash to investigate. In Hong Kong she mistrusts the loyalty of station chief Benjamin Foo. But, threatened by danger at every turn, Ruth uncovers an ugly trail of deception and violence snaking back through fifty war-torn years - and forward to the most terrifying clash yet between China and the enemies at her gates . . . Hurtling from Hong Kong and Bangkok to London and Vienna, Down Among The Dead Men is the spectacular debut of a major international thriller writer – and a sensational novel of action and betrayal."

Seven Steps to Treason

Michael Hartland

1985

David Nairn appears in this novel.

"Vienna late 1980s - violence is breaking out in strife-torn Poland. A spark that could set the Soviet prison of Eastern Europe ablaze. There are dangerous Western plans to ensure that the inevitable rising will not be a repeat of Hungary in 1956. In Moscow, faceless men and women know that Bill Cable, after years banished to diplomatic backwaters, is into something big – so big they will destroy him to get it. If they fail, this could mean the end for the Soviet Union. They’ve had a stranglehold on Cable ever since the tragedy, deep in the past, that led to him being kicked out of the Intelligence Service. Now he is back, as British Ambassador in Vienna. Still compromised but, just to make sure, they kidnap his daughter, Sarah, and threaten her life. Will he betray her – or his country and the freedom of millions?."

The Third Betrayal

Michael Hartland

1986

A David Nairn novel.

"In 1973, Sir Jack Carteret, Director-General of MI5, is buried in a lonely Somerset graveyard. Was he the traitor who laid bare his nation’s secrets to the Soviet Union? Or is there, as many believe, an agent or ring of agents still in place, silently revealing all to our deadliest enemy? Thirteen years later, fear and suspicion are destroying British intelligence – and our vital ally the United States no longer trusts us. David Nairn of the Secret Intelligence Service is desperate to untangle the web of deception, violence and blackmail woven in Moscow forty years ago. Suddenly the defection of a young East German scientist could lead to the vital breakthrough – but first they must turn his mother, the elusive Sonia, a top ranking Soviet spy who ran Klaus Fuchs and the other atom bomb spies in the War, who is believed to have controlled the Fifth Man - and whose loyalty to Moscow is utterly unassailable. Nairn knows he must risk everything, including Sarah Cable’s life, to expose the most dangerous mole of all time."

Frontier of Fear

Michael Hartland

1989

A David Nairn novel.

"Dr Nazim Khan – the secretive mastermind of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme - and the target of British Intelligence officer Sarah Cable, now twenty-six, ambitious and strikingly attractive. Her task is to worm her way into his trust – if need be, via his bed . . . The job is distasteful, vital and dangerous. One agent is already dead. Three more await public execution. But there are greater dangers. In Moscow, Gorbachev, struggling to withdraw from Afghanistan, faces revolt from the Soviet military, still determined to crush the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. An unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan could be drawn in and set half the world ablaze. Sarah’s courage, ingenuity - and her humanity – are about to be tested to breaking point."

The Year of the Scorpion

Michael Hartland

1991

David Nairn appears in this novel.

"The first bullet caught her in the shoulder, the second in the thigh. The Chinese border guard stopped firing - she was dead, snared in the wire that had ended her dash for freedom. The Hong Kong police could collect her body in the morning. The murderous old men who clung to power in Peking would never know how close she had come to unmasking their prize spymaster in the West. The elusive Scorpion – who has penetrated the nerve centre of the Trident submarines they fear so much because they still have no defence against them. And now Scorpion is also penetrating the seething opposition that threatens to destroy the last and greatest Communist empire . . . The Year Of The Scorpion is Michael Hartland’s finest achievement – an explosive thriller packed with action, courage, love and betrayal, a fight to the death between two enemies who never meet."

Dead Fish

Ruth Carrington

1998

"Dr Geoffrey Quinn arrives home in the middle of the night to find his children missing, the charred remains of his wife’s body in the boiler and Chief Superintendent Manning waiting to arrest him for her murder. Enter Alison Hope: small, attractive, determined, and briefed to defend him. Quinn claims he is innocent, but Alison is not so sure. The background becomes increasingly murky as she penetrates a wealthy and ruthless circle who cannot risk their secrets coming to light. Behind a façade of genteel society parties, their hard drugs and kinky sex could be embarrassing. But - deeper hidden - swirl dangerous currents of child molestation, mega-fraud and illegal arms dealing. Crimes they will kill to conceal? Underlying everything is the inexorable deadline of Quinn’s trial. Can Alison unravel the mystery in time to save him? It seems she hasn’t a chance. ‘Then give it up,’ counsels her lover, eccentric private investigator George Kristianssen: ‘Go with the flow.’ But Alison is resolute. Only Dead Fish go with the flow."