Marcus Didius Falco takes to the streets of ancient Rome once more, this time as a private investigator for the Emperor Vespasian himself. He is put on the trail of a villain who means to depose the Emperor.

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Earl, the father of Bob Lee, was a Marine hero in WWII and is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets.
Haunted by the brutal campaigns of the Pacific, plagued by the memory of his abusive father,and apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a courageous lawman of absolute integrity and overwhelming melancholy. Now he's about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet.
It is the summer of 1946, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good. Nowhere is this more true than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the reigning capital of corruption. When the district attorney vows to bring down the mob, Earl is recruited to run the show. As casino raids erupt into nerve-shattering combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns, the body count mounts. Can Earl, caught between his duty as a lawman and the emerging truth about his own father, survive another war with his body and soul intact?

Packed with page-turning action, sex, sin and crime, Hot Springs is at once a relentlessly violent and deeply touching story.

'Nation states,' said Smith, 'regularly act with a complete disregard for morality that they would find totally unacceptable in their citizens. And that,' he added,'is the licence we are giving you as an agent of the state - the licence to go beyond good and evil, to do what you will.'

With these words Chris Ryan's new hero, Peter Slater, is recruited into the most secret service, so secret that it is not clear what part of the government - parliament, civil service or the monarchy - knows about it. As he descends into a world of almost unimaginable violence and political and sexual double-cross, he begins to wonder whether anyone in government knows about this department, and, indeed, whether it exists at all.

Praise for Chris Ryan's fiction:
'Remarkable...gripping' Express
'Slick, polished and gut-wrenching stuff' Irish Times
'Real strength in detailing the nitty-gritty of operations' Sunday Times
'A big-balled romp that's just dying to be read in the company of a beer, a sun lounger and a holiday in the Mediterranean' Maxim