A Reluctant Asset
Someone inside British security services has been working for Tehran for years.
Tom Kessler is about to find out who, and whether he can trust anyone on his own team.
An IRGC Colonel arrives in London under diplomatic cover. Within hours, his family is taken. Tom gets to them first. The price of their return is everything the Colonel has. From that moment, one of the IRGC's most feared intelligence officers becomes the deepest asset MI6 has run inside Iranian intelligence in a generation.
But as he begins to talk, something surfaces that Tom's team was never meant to find. Evidence that the Iranians have their own source. Embedded, patient, and close.
With a major incident in Tehran approaching and the clock running down, Tom must decide how far to trust a man who had no choice but to turn.
Set against the real events of November 2011, A Reluctant Asset is a tautly constructed British intelligence thriller from ex-Surrey Drug Squad detective Peter J Charles grounded in real tradecraft and the kind of moral compromise that leaves no one clean.
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Peter J Charles
I write British crime and intelligence fiction with a procedural edge. The detail comes from having lived the work rather than researched it.
Before writing came service in the Royal Air Force, then nine years as a detective on the Surrey Drug Squad: surveillance both conventional and electronic, criminal intelligence, informant handling and undercover operations. The characters are complex and the operations are grounded, because I've done the work. The tension is never for show.
The Tom Kessler series now runs to five novels, beginning with A Detective's Dilemma, which introduces Detective Constable Tom Kessler on a Surrey drug squad. The series moves from street-level policing into intelligence and geopolitical territory, and a sixth book is in progress. The first four titles are published in Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian and German.
British thrillers for readers of Stephen Leather and Neil Lancaster.
Whether it's the patience of a long surveillance shift or the urgency of a high-stakes bust, I aim to capture the nuance of the work and the lives behind it.
When I'm not writing, you'll find me walking the countryside, fly fishing, or watching rugby with a pint in my hand. It's a slower pace than the one I used to live, but the stories haven't stopped.
The Tom Kessler Thrillers
The Tom Kessler Thrillers consists of five books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
