In the winter of I 1920, the first body is found in Delano, Georgia-the naked, brutalized corpse of a young boy. It Is a crime too horrific to be ignored; the first of many that will span four decades, embroiling three separate police chiefs in a remarkable manhunt that will expose the hatreds, fears, dark secrets and festering wounds beneath the surface of their sleepy God-fearing community.

Scanning satellite photos, Katharine Rule, chief watcher of the Soviet scene for the CIA, spots a secret KGB training base, code-named Malibu, on the Baltic in Latvia. KGB General Viktor Majorov runs Malibu and is the mastermind behind a Soviet plot to take over Sweden. As Majorov races to set his plan in motion, Rule battles bungling CIA bosses to make her case before the Russians launch their invasion.

A respected senator from Georgia, Will Lee has aspirations of more. But a cruel stroke of fate thrusts him onto the national stage well before he expects, and long before he's ready, for a national campaign. The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous -- and deadly -- than Will and his intelligent, strikingly beautiful wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine. A courageous and principled...

President Will Lee is having a rough week. There are some loose nukes in Pakistan--and a rogue CIA agent--that might just trigger World War III if Lee's diplomatic efforts fall short. It's up to Holly Barker, Lance Cabot, and a few other Stuart Woods series regulars to save the world--and the upcoming election.