Cold Barrel Zero

Clancy meets LeCarre in Matthew Quirk's action-packed new thriller.

John Byrne, a retired army doctor, has been working in the overnight Emergency Room of a Washington D.C. hospital, trying to outrun his past. The disavowed Joint Special Operations Command squad he once served with ended up carrying out a massacre deemed the worst atrocity in modern times. No one has seen the squad's leader, Thomas Hayes, since--until now.

Hayes has reunited his former crew to initiate a series of ever-escalating heists that will either prove their innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt, or culminate in the worst terrorist attack the United States has seen since 9/11. Byrne isn't sure who to believe--his former squad-mates or the leader of the task force tracking Hayes--the very person Hayes claims is responsible for the atrocities for which he and his squad took the fall.

Matthew Quirk studied history and literature at Harvard College. After graduation, he joinedThe Atlantic and spent five years at the magazine reporting on a variety of subjects including crime, private military contractors, the opium trade, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs. Quirk's bestselling first novel,The 500, is currently in development as a major motion picture. He divides his time between San Diego and Washington, D.C.