Most Popular Books by Helen MacInnes

American art expert Colin Grant is sent to Vienna on a seemingly simple mission in this suspenseful, action-packed first installment in the thrilling Robert Renwick espionage trilogy New York art expert Colin Grant takes on an easy commission: to travel to Vienna and bid on a priceless Old Master on behalf of a Texan millionaire. The painting has been smuggled out of Hungary by a defector, and Grant must get it at any cost, while keeping his employer’s name a secret. But all is not as it seems. No sooner has Grant landed in Austria than his seemingly simple assignment turns into a nightmare, as he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy to unleash a wave of international terrorism. Grant must now navigate a hidden and terrifying world, as he and the woman he loves become pawns in a war between the secret armies of East and West.

While carrying out research in Paris, American historian John Craig is surprised when he runs into his old college professor. Sussman is a worried man. A survivor of Auschwitz, he in shock, having seen and been seen by one of the Nazis who tortured him in the camp. But SS Colonel Berg has been dead for ten years – or has he? Before Craig can help solve the riddle, Sussman is found dead and Craig is being questioned by the police. As various international organisations are drawn into the hunt for Sussman’s killer, he realises that the ex-Nazi is far more than just a wanted war criminal. Soon Craig’s search for the truth takes him from Paris to the island of Mykonos, where he must unmask a dangerous and powerful foe.

British soldier Peter Lennox, a POW in an Italian prison camp, is still fighting his own war. An artist in civilian life, his hands bear the scars of wounds received during his capture at the fall of Tobruk, and he suspects he will never paint again. The only thing that sustains him is plotting his escapes, no matter how many times he is recaptured. But in September 1943 the Italians surrender to the Allies, and Lennox is free. Wanting nothing more than to return to the fighting, he is instead assigned to the mountains of the South Tyrol as a liaison to a desperate band of resistance fighters. With little more than courage and knowledge of the local terrain, Lennox and his comrades must help pave the way for an Allied push that may change the course of the war.

Paul Haydn was on his way home at last, to New York and the civilian life he longed for, after years of War. Yet he would never forget the tormented people, desperate for refuge in Berlin. They had survived the War - but now a new, sinister presence threatened them, their families, the whole of society. Now he discovered that, back home, some of his former colleagues had dangerous political sympathies, that someone was trying to discredit the woman he had once loved. The pattern seemed suddenly familiar. He began to realise why there was such interest in his counter-propaganda skills.

"That delay in the delivery of the message from Málaga could have been absolutely disastrous. As it was, there had been irreparable loss: an agent dead." Under the Mediterranean sun, a drama begins in a cafe in Málaga. For Ian Ferrier, an employee of the United States Space Agency on holiday to visit his old friend Jeff Reid, it means the startling discovery that Reid is not just a wine exporter, but rather engaged in smuggling communist defectors to the West. Events take a turn for the worse when Ferrier, a stranger to the deadly world of espionage, must take sole charge of a high-ranking KGB agent. Alone in an frighteningly alien landscape, he can afford no mistakes when choosing whom to trust...

Chuck Kelso is an idealist. When he steals a top-secret NATO memorandum, he only intends to leak it to the press; but it is soon in the hands of a Russian agent, a man who has spent nine years quietly working himself into the fabric of Washington society. Within hours it has reached the KGB, and the CIA’s top man in Moscow has had his cover blown. For British agent Tony Lawton, hunting down the Russian operative – the ‘agent in place’ – is a welcome challenge. But for Chuck’s brother, the journalist Tom Kelso, and his beautiful wife, Thea, the affair has unleashed a very special terror. Now the race is on to find the Russian spy before a top-level NATO conference. But why is the escaped agent behaving so strangely? Is he who he seems?

In a quiet London pub, Bob Renwick, founder of counter-terrorist agency Interintell, is handed a list of names. The Minus List has been compiled by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm, engaged in training terrorists and arms dealing, and he intends to remove anyone who might get in his way. To be on the list means death for the target, their friends and family, and Renwick''s name is third. On a desperate mission that takes him from New York to Paris, from Zurich to Djibouti, Renwick must unmask his nemesis to save all that he holds dear.

When journalist Karen Cornell is invited to a peace conference in Prague, she only goes on the understanding that she will be granted a valuable interview. Instead she finds herself chosen for a more hazardous task: carrying top-secret documents from a potential Czech defector back to Washington. With the papers safely in the hands of Peter Bristow, the one CIA man Karen can trust, she is sure her part in the drama is over, but soon she is pulled into an astonishing web of blackmail, assassination and treason at the highest level. There is a mole in the CIA and it is Bristow’s job to find it, as well as protecting Karen from an unknown enemy. With Karen’s life in danger and time running out, they must uncover a plot that threatens the very heart of US Intelligence.

Set in the 1960s during the Cold War, this is a captivating espionage adventure from “the queen of spy writers” who has been compared to Graham Greene and Ian Fleming (Sunday Express). While on assignment in Paris and Venice, an American journalist works desperately to expose Communist espionage activities . . . Fenner burned Rosenfeld’s message, reminding himself wryly that he was behaving in the very best tradition. This was a game not too difficult to learn, he thought. A game? A game in deadly earnest. A vacation in Venice that was grim business. A girl constantly beside him who wasn’t his. How the hell had he walked into this upside-down world? Where, he wondered suddenly, would Venice lead?

They were worlds apart. Sarah Bly, a sophisticated career woman on a chauffeur-driven tour of America with the wealthy Mrs Margaret Peel. Jim Brent, a tough, old-fashioned cowboy, ill at ease away from his rugged mountain ranch. Yet a wrong turn on a remote road in Wyoming unexpectedly brings them together. The discovery of the ranch house Rest and be Thankful opens Sarah’s eyes to the beauty of the West and makes the brash cynicism of the city seem irrelevant. After years of travelling the world, this idyllic place could be what she’s been searching for. But can two such different people every really overcome their differences and give in to love?

Irina Kusak’s recently divorced husband, Jiri Hrádek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the west, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hrádek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father, a world-famous author living in secrecy in the west, but when she refuses to lead Hrádek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target. As Hrádek closes in and Irina’s life hangs in the balance, David Mennery is drawn into a desperate fight to protect her and finds himself once more falling deeply in love…

American diplomat Payton Pleydell and his wife Sylvia are the most respected, brilliant couple in Washington. Theirs seems a perfect marriage but Kate Jerold begins to suspect that her cousin’s husband is not as devoted as he seems. Then the unexpected arrival of a Czech official threatens to bring the façade crashing down. Even after six years apart, Sylvia has not forgotten Jan Brovic; during the war they had been deeply, secretly in love. But now there is a new war, and former allies have become bitter enemies. Jan is on the other side and his motives may not be pure. Separated by the enmity of nations, Sylvia must decide whether to risk everything to be with the man she loves.

Two married academics are recruited to search for a missing spy in this bestselling espionage thriller that takes readers into the heart of Nazi Germany just before World War II Richard and Frances Myles are preparing for their annual European summer vacation in 1939 when they are visited at their Oxford college by old friend Peter Galt, who has a seemingly simple job for them. But in the heightened atmosphere of pre-war Europe, nobody is above suspicion. In fact, it seems the husband and wife are being carefully monitored by shadowy figures . . . Above Suspicion was MacInnes’ breakthrough book, a bestseller published in 1941 and released as a movie in 1943, directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray. “Hide and seek with death—in the shadow of terror . . . The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.” —The New York Times

The ‘queen of spy writers’ returns with another “wonderfully readable” espionage thriller about a sunken Nazi chest whose secrets reverberate throughout the decades . . . (New York Times) He demanded the immediate dispatch of two suitably trained operatives to Salzburg. Extreme measures might be necessary. In 1945, with their thousand-year empire falling around them and the Allies on their heels, the Nazis hide a sealed chest in the dark, forbidding waters of the Finstersee—a lake surrounded by the brooding peaks of the Austrian Alps. There it lies for 21 years, almost forgotten, until a British agent decides to raise it from the depths . . . The secrets he uncovers are far-reaching and lethal, and in Salzburg, Bill Mathison—a New York attorney on the trail of a missing colleague—finds himself drawn into the shadowy underworld of international espionage. Not knowing who to trust amidst the chaos, he is drawn to two beautiful women, one of whom will betray him. “All the makings of the big bestseller . . . Nazi secrets at the bottom of an Austrian lake, agents from America, Russia, Britain and Red China, some modern-day Nazis—and plenty of dead bodies.” —Sunday Express

Terrorists lead ex-intelligence officer Robert Renwick on a cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of Europe and Asia in this suspense thriller by a master of the spy novel. For Nina O’Connell, a trip round the world was the holiday of a lifetime. Travelling in a group led by the attractive James Kiley and his friend Tony Shawfield, she is surprised when she runs into her old flame Robert Renwick, ex-army major attached to NATO. He is on the hunt for two terrorists who have left a trail of bombings and murder in their wake—and now he must keep Nina safe while trying to discover their next target. Soon Nina is caught up in a grim game of life or death that stretches from the back streets of Bombay to the highest reaches of Washington’s political elite.

English girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home.

A phone call prompts Bill Lammiter, a young American playwright, to follow a former girlfriend to Rome. There Lammiter saves a mysterious Italian girl from a beating and the fat is in the fire. A kidnapping, a battle in a Renaissance villa, a shrewd gamekeeper, a chance snapshot and a touring preppy contribute to the excitement and suspense of this Cold War thriller.

David Bosworth and Penelope Lorrimer seem to have everything against them. He is a penniless undergraduate at Oxford with a head full of dreams; she is the daughter of a well-to-do Edinburgh family who have great ambitions for her. Nevertheless their friendship defies the gulf between their social backgrounds, and the opposition that they encounter draws them closer than any love more easily won.

Just another routine overseas assignment. That''s what successful young New York architect Ken Strang thought when a national travel magazine sent him to Europe to sketch Greek ruins. What he did not know, until it was too late, was that from the moment he boarded the ship, he had become the pawn in a murderous game of international intrigue. To Strang, danger was no object. He could take care of himself, but he had reckoned without Cecilia, his beautiful photographer. When he fell in love with her, he gave his enemies the one weapon they needed.

He stared at the unfamiliar watch on his wrist. Three hours ago he had stood on English soil. Three hours ago he had been Martin Hearne, British Intelligence agent. Now he was in Nazi-occupied Brittany, posing as Bertrand Corlay, with the Frenchman''s life reduced to headings in his memory. Hearne looked down at the faded uniform which had once been Corlay''s, felt once more for the papers in the inside pocket. He was ready. From now on he was one step away from death... The Queen of Spy Writers returns in a stunning series collecting all of her greatest works! Titan kicks off with Assignment in Brittany; the gripping tale of an undercover operative deep in Nazi-occupied France.

Set in 1177 B.C. on the day an irritated and penniless Ulysses returns home to a beautiful but resentful Penelope.

David Bosworth, a penniless undergraduate at Oxford, and Penelope Lorrimer, a wealthy heiress, meet and fall in love. Penelope''s family objects to their union but the adversity only serves to deepen the relationship between the two.