Paramour

by Gerald Petievich

A suicide is discovered in a top-secret White House file room. Rumors of a dangerous threat to the president have spread, and Secret Service agent Jack Powers is assigned to keep the brewing crises from the press. But death is just the tip of the iceberg --espionage is suspected of a beautiful woman who just may be the President's mistress. Acting on presidential orders, Powers follows a twisting trail that leads from the inner circle of the Oval Office to the outer fringes of international terrorism. But suddenly he finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of the deceit, murder, and betrayal that can destroy him at any moment.

Genres: Thriller

366 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Gerald Petievich belongs to that tiny group of writers who came to crime fiction from careers in law enforcement. He has been an Army counterspy and a U.S. Secret Service agent, using his real life experiences to achieve verisimilitude in his fiction. His novels are known to come as close as any in the mystery- and-thriller genre to a genuine realism. Three of his novels have been produced as major motion pictures.

Gerald grew up in a police family. His father and brother were both members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and later served in Germany as a US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent. As Chief of the Counterespionage Section, Field Office Nuremberg, he received commendations for his work during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In 1970 he joined the United States Secret Service where as a Special Agent he spent fifteen years engaged in duties relating to the protection of the President and the enforcement of Federal counterfeiting laws. It was during a long-term Secret Service assignment in Paris, France that Petievich discovered the works of Per Wahloo & Maj Sjowall, Graham Greene and John le Carre, and decided to become a writer. Later, while serving in Los Angeles as the US Secret Service representative to the Department of Justice Organized Crime Strike Force, Gerald's schedule consisted of rising at 4 AM to write before going to his government office.

In 1985, Gerald left the Secret Service to pursue his writing career full-time.