Herbie Kruger Series

A terrorist car bomb, and death comes quickly to The Confessor, aka Gus Keene, the best interrogator the Secret Intelligence Service ever had. But he becomes infinitely more mysterious in death when Big Herbie Kruger, torn from self-inflicted retirement, is summoned to delve into the dead man's past. As he begins to peel back the layers of Keen's life, he uncovers a man of hidden depths, a man who knew more than he should about Government secrets.

Soon the trail leads Kruger to the unholy alliance of a renegade IRA cell and a vicious Middle Eastern terrorist group intent upon wreaking havoc across Europe. Somewhere in their razed scenario lie the clues to Keene's death. But Kruger must pick his way through the chaos of treachery and violence to find them . . .

Quiet Dogs

by John Gardner

Published 1 November 1982

Is Herbie Kruger's final stand? He has a chance for redemption. But time is running out; the Quiet Dogs are stirring . . .

After his humiliation in The Garden of Weapons, Big Herbie is still under suspicion. Worse, he has endangered Britain's top agent in the Kremlin, Stentor. Herbie must make amends. He must manoeuvre Stentor's rescue form the grasp of the Quiet Dogs . . . And exact revenge, in the final confrontation, on his old enemy General Jacob Vascovsky.

The Nostradamus Traitor

by John Gardner

Published 1 January 1979

Into the cauldron of war went the Nostradamus operation ...out of it came an even deadlier threat than the Nazis: The Nostradamus Traitor Britain's psychological warfare executive knew all about the Nazi belief in the occult. They hatched up a top secret plot to drive a rift between Himmler's SS and the Wehrmacht by infilitrating phony Nostradamus quatrains into Germany. Thirty years later then unbelievable truth began to trickle out: Herbie Kruger of British Intelligence was given the delicate task of keeping the past well and truly buried ...

The Garden of Weapons

by John Gardner

Published 1 August 1983

"In our world we live on lies." When Big Herbie Kruger used those words to break the KGB defector, he didn't realize just how much his own life had been built on a lie. In his world, though, where love is just another conduit for information, it could be no other way. Now the lies planted when Herbie created his network in East Berlin have borne their bitter fruit. The lives of men and women who trusted him are in danger and his masters in British Intelligence won't let him go back to Berlin to help them. Herbie Kruger has no choice, then. He must tell what may be his final lie ...

Maestro

by John Gardner

Published 22 April 1993

Louis Passau is America's greatest living orchestral conductor, a legendary, world-acclaimed artist whose ninetieth birthday will be marked by a glittering celebratory concert at New York's Lincoln Center. But a double shadow hangs over the event: Passau has recently been accused of spying for Hitler and, worse, the British Secret Intelligence Service have now linked his name to KGB clandestine operations in the USA during the Cold War. The Maestro agrees to be interrogated, but only after the concert. British Intelligence call in Big Herbie Kruger to question the Maestro, and thanks to the once-famous agent-runner Passau survives an assassination attempt in his moment of glory. Still a target, he now insists on dealing only with Kruger, who desperately seeks a safe-house to conduct the debriefing. As he grapples with the elusive truth about the conductor - from the man's first memories of his Bavarian village, to his adventures as a young immigrant in New York, his experiences in Capone's Chicago and his ruthless rise to fame and fortune - Herbie Kruger finds himself ensnared in the Maestro's dangerous secrets and deceits.