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The Jackal's Share

A gripping spy thriller from a new Le Carre Boundless wealth hides the deepest secrets . . . When a charismatic billionaire asks Ben Webster to investigate his personal affairs it isn’t long before the private spy is convinced that there is something very wrong with his new client. What is Darius Qazai’s real motive for contacting Webster? And what – beneath his generous, honourable image – does he have to hide? Soon Webster will discover that the tycoon's secret is far bigger and more dangerous than he could have imagined, and that his new enemy will think nothing of destroying him, or his family . . . In a heart-pounding journey which will take readers from London to Marrakech, from Italy to Dubai, Chris Morgan Jones once again asserts himself as the spy thriller writer for a new generation. Also in the Ben Webster series: An Agent of Deceit Praise for Chris Morgan Jones' Ben Webster series: ‘The best spy adventure I’ve read in a long time’ The Times ‘The Jackal's Share reunites us with corporate spy Ben Webster from his debut An Agent of Deceit. Morgan Jones does invite comparisons with Le Carre, and never more so than in this elegant novel about the dark, amoral charisma of the super-rich. Murky, mesmerising stuff’ Guardian ‘Moves at tremendous pace and teems with exciting moments . . . such a clever and entertaining novel’ The Times ‘Chris Morgan Jones's debut novel, An Agent of Deceit, was rightly praised for continuing the reconfiguration of the spy novel begun by such terrific authors as Charles Cumming after the Berlin Wall came down and east versus west became too simplistic an analysis of world politics. But with The Jackal's Share it becomes clear that, actually, Morgan Jones is writing detective as well as spy fiction. The novel is as much Raymond Chandler as John le Carré; as much The Big Sleep as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold . . . Morgan Jones has more than equalled his powerful debut ’ Observer ‘Accomplished and believable’ Sunday Times ‘An elegant, tense thriller’ Grazia 'Morgan Jones's prose is clean and cold, crisp and ominous . . . this is a world Morgan Jones knows, and it shows’ Observer

The Jackal's Share

"Terrific news for fans of first-class thrillers." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR.org A murder in a Tehran hotel leaves the London art world spinning. The deceased, beloved at home as a proud dealer in antiquities, now stands accused of smuggling artifacts out of Iran for sale in the West. But despite the triumphal announcements of the secret police, there is something perhaps too tidy in the official report—given that no artifacts have been recovered, no smuggling history discovered, no suspects found. Half a world away, Darius Qazai delivers a stiring eulogy for his departed friend. A fabulously successful financier, Qazai has directed his life and wealth toward philanthropy, art preservation, and peaceful protest against the regime of his native Iran. His fortune, colossal; his character, immaculate. Pleasantly ensconced in the world of the London expatriate elite, Qazai is the last person anyone would suspect of foul play. Yet something ominous is disrupting Qazai’s recent business deals, some rumor from his past so frightening to his American partners that they will no longer speak to him. So Qazai hires a respectable corporate intelligence firm to investigate himself and clear his reputation. A veteran of intelligence work in the former Soviet Union, Ben Webster soon discovers that Qazai’s pristine past is actually a dense net of interlocking half-truths and unanswered questions: Is he a respectable citizen or an art smuggler? Is his fortune built on merit or on arms dealing? Is he, after all, his own man? As he closes in on the truth of Qazai’s fortune—and those who would wish to destroy it—Webster discovers he may pay for that knowledge with the lives of his own family. A vivid and relentless tale of murderous corporate espionage, The Jackal’s Share follows the money through the rotten alleys of Marrakech and the shining spires of Dubai, from the idyllic palaces of Lake Como to the bank houses of London’s City. The Jackal’s Share plunges readers into a Middle East as strange and raw as ever depicted, where recent triumphs rest uneasily atop buried crimes and monumental greed. Christopher Morgan Jones's newest book, The Searcher, will be published by Penguin Press on March 22nd, 2016.

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