Cloud Cover by Ron Terpening

May 1984. A Yugoslav military attaché defects in Ottawa. Before the Canadians can interrogate him, he is assassinated.

In Trieste, Italy, someone is eliminating NATO agents. Michael Higgins, their case officer, is warned by a Canadian spy, Fae Avadek, that he has a traitor in his network. Suddenly, Higgins is running for his life, framed for the murder of one of his contacts. Pursued by an unknown enemy, he falls in love with Fae, whose violent past figures in their search for answers.

In the Yugoslav mountains, where Croatian terrorists, KGB spies, and NATO agents play out the final violent moves in a dangerous game to change the fate of Europe, Higgins and Avadek must sift through layers of deceit and treachery in their attempt to thwart an enemy whose tentacles stretch from the East to the West, from the past to the present.

CLOUD COVER is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Cliff Edge Publishing.

 *****

An “incredibly entertaining and thrilling novel … If there really is a spine-tingling category, this book wins it hands-down. Readers who miss that gripping, chilling writing that comes from a lost time period of pure mystery and suspense will curl up in a chair and literally ignore everyone for hours, just to ride the roller coaster with these incredible characters. A breath of fresh air, this is a definite keeper!” — Amy Lignor, author of The Sapphire Storm: Tallent & Lowery Book Two [review forthcoming in Suspense Magazine]

Cloud Cover is a strong addition to spy thriller collections. Much recommended.” — Small Press Bookwatch: June 2013. The Mystery/Suspense Shelf, Midwest Book Review

“A fabulous writer” — Brad Thor, national bestselling author of Black List and Hidden Order

“A writer to watch” — Barbara Conaty, Library Journal

 *****

Ron Terpening is the author of the thrillers Storm Track, League of Shadows, Tropic of Fear, Nine Days in October, and Cloud Cover, as well as two young-adult novels. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon in Eugene and his Master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He has lived in Mexico City and in Pavia and Florence, Italy. He taught for four years at Loyola University of Chicago and for twenty-six years at the University of Arizona as a professor of Italian (now emeritus). He has also written numerous articles and books dealing with Italian literature, history, and culture.

He and his wife, Vicki, along with their four dogs and two horses, live in the foothills of the Tucson mountains.