The Kiriov Tapes

Nick Maasten, former mercenary and current Department spy has been branded a traitor for fostering the Russian defector, Kiriov.

Now, Kiriov is on the run. And with him, he has taken classified material that could ruin the Department and MI5 for good.

Maasten knows that he must risk it all to find Kiriov and the tapes, otherwise he will suffer the fatal consequences.

He won’t be able to do it alone.

Enlisting the aid of ex-Detective Inspector Adrian Quimper, an ex-Department hitman with nothing left to lose, Maasten knows that his life depends on finding Kiriov and the tapes he is holding.

But when Kiriov turns up dead, the tapes having vanished into thin air, both Maasten and Quimper find themselves completely lost.

Hearing that the Department has put a violent ex-CIA psychopathic thug in charge of the investigation, and that an innocent computer programmer had been caught in the crossfire, the duo begin to realise that there is more than meets the eye to what should have been a routine intelligence cleanup operation.

Questions arise as to the relationship between the Department and a surreptitious deal with the Russians. Maasten knew he was meant to leak supposedly harmless information on the new British supersonic fighter, but at what cost?

And to what end?

Almost too late, Quimper and Maasten realize that there’s no such thing as truth in intelligence.

And they’re about to learn the price of getting too close to the heat.

The Kiriov Tapes is a gripping thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Praise for Owen Sela


‘Jumpingly lively all the way’ The Times

‘A good racy tale and Mr. Sela has a touch not unlike Deighton’ The Scotsman

‘Those who enjoy Ian Fleming should enjoy Owen Sela’ Publishers Weekly

‘Le Carré espionage stuff, well plotted and well written.’ New York Times Book Review

‘Sela has his own niche in the wall raised by John Le Carré and Ian Fleming.’ Houston Post

‘All the hallmarks of superb originality, nearly unbearable tension, characterisation that conveys to the reader protagonists of flesh and blood… Take Owen Sela first.’ - Whitefriar, Smith’s Trade News.

A book for ‘just about everyone who enjoyed the late James Bond or the early Len Deighton. Let yourself go and you’re gone.’ – Kirkus Reviews

‘In the Le Carré tradition is a first-class story of its kind.’ Washington Star

‘Sela writes at the sophisticated top of a much abused form with a zap as authoritative as the gun of the same name he uses.’ – Kirkus Reviews

Owen Sela was born in Ceylon. His family wanted him to become an accountant so he became a partner in a London firm of Chartered Accountants. He then wrote The Bearer Plot and The Kiriov Tapes which caused former CIA agent Miles Copeland agent to say, "Spooks like his books. They capture the mood of spooks sardonic sense of humour."

Since then Sela has written 10 more books.

He lives in Canada where he writes and runs an investment consultancy.