The Code: A Cold War thriller

by Nick Elliott

A spy swap in the Syrian desert, a pirate attack in the Sulu Sea, a devastating confrontation in the Balkans …Beirut 1963: Kim Philby defects to Moscow. As he boards his Soviet escape ship, unnoticed, a young ship’s officer passes him on the quayside. Valdis Ozols is disenchanted, idealistic and susceptible. And two men are waiting for him. Drawn into the shadowy world of espionage and a lifetime of deception and danger, Valdis reaches his lowest ebb in the harsh surroundings of a post-Soviet prison - until a ship’s bosun and fellow inmate, Angus McKinnon, becomes the Latvian’s trusted friend and confidante.Together, the two men must break out and thwart a plan to annihilate a war-torn Balkan city. In doing so, an impossible choice must be made between the murder of tens of thousands of innocent citizens and the horrific killing of a young woman.The Code spans the Cold War and beyond, from the Cuban missile crisis to the dawn of the Millennium. And it introduces us to marine investigator, Angus McKinnon and how he becomes entangled in the life-and-death world of espionage before confronting further hazardous assignments in Sea of Gold, Dark Ocean and Black Reef.

295 pages, Paperback

Published May 8, 2021

About the author

"Nick Elliott delivers in spades when it comes to fast-paced, intelligent, international thrillers. You feel, smell and touch every authentically crafted location; you’re expertly drawn into a maze of shadows and sinister organizations and characters where nothing is what it seems. This really is thriller writing of the highest calibre.” Craig Russell, award-winning author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Jan Fabel and Lennox crime thrillers.

Over an eventful career in international shipping, Nick Elliott has handled dozens of maritime claims, casualties and other assorted mishaps throughout the Far East, the East Med and Black Sea. Many of these cases provide inspiration for his series of Angus McKinnon thrillers.

He worked as a ships agent in Hong Kong and Tokyo for twenty years and Piraeus for a further eight. Along the way he's been sent to the Pacific island of Nauru to quell fears of a typhoid epidemic; hidden in a storm drain during an inter-gang shootout in Guam; investigated the theft of a cargo of ethyl alcohol in Georgia tracing both cargo and the armed gang of thieves to North Ossetia; and oversaw the welfare, disembarkation and migration from Hong Kong to the UK of 1,002 Vietnamese boat people rescued by a British ship in the South China Sea.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers and now divides his time between Scotland and Greece.

Dark Ocean, his second thriller in the Angus McKinnon series, was published on Amazon in August 2017: http://amzn.to/2vIPRyJ

Nick’s first book, Sea of Gold, is also available from Amazon: http://amzn.to/1jkQUYT

You can sign up to Nick's newsletter from his website: http://www.nickelliott.org