The Fractured Europe Sequence
6 total works
Europe as we know it is gone.
Devastated by a flu pandemic and crippled by economic collapse, the continent has fractured into countless tiny nations, a fragile web of shifting alliances seething with espionage and strange new technologies.
In a small restaurant in Krakow, chef Rudi is drawn into a new career with Les Coureurs des Bois, a shadowy organisation that will move anything across any state line – for a price.
Soon, Rudi is in a world of high-risk smuggling operations, where kidnappings and double-crosses are as natural as a map that constantly redraws itself.
Fractured Europe. A Parallel World. A Global Threat.
Union has come. The Community is now the largest nation in Europe; trains run there from as far afield as London and Prague. It is an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
So what is the reason for a huge terrorist outrage? Why do the Community and Europe meet in secret, exchanging hostages? And who are Les Coureurs des Bois?
Along with a motley crew of strays and mafiosi and sleeper agents, Rudi sets out to answer these questions – only to discover that the truth lies both closer to home and farther away than anyone could possibly imagine.
In Tallinn, Alice – a junior Scottish diplomat – is drawn into an incomprehensible plot spanning decades. In the Aegean, young refugee Benno makes a desperate break for freedom and finds himself in a strange new life. On the canals of England, a fleet of narrow boats is gathering. Rudi, now a seasoned Coureur, finds himself drawn away from the kitchen one last time as he sets out with his ally Rupert in pursuit of a dead man.
For an intelligence officer like Jim, it’s a nightmare. Every week or so a friendly power spawns a new and unknown national entity which may or may not be friendly to England’s interests. It’s hard to keep on top of it all. But things are about to get worse for Jim.
A stabbing on a London bus pitches him into a world where his intelligence service is preparing for war with another universe, and a man has come who may hold the key to unlocking Europe’s most jealously-guarded secret...
Nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke and British Science Fiction Awards
For an intelligence officer like Jim, today’s world is a nightmare.
The Xian Flu pandemic and ongoing economic crises have fractured the European Union and new nations are springing up everywhere, some literally overnight. Every week or so a friendly power spawns, or a new and unknown national entity which may not be friendly to England’s interests; it’s hard to keep on top of it all. And things are about to get worse for Jim.
A stabbing on a London bus pitches him into a world where his intelligence service is preparing for war with another universe, and a man has come who may hold the key to unlocking the mystery.
When Carey Tews retired from Les Coureurs - the clandestine organisation of high-risk smugglers - she swore she'd never go back. Her cover in Hungary was blown, and even if she could have returned, she wouldn't. That is, until an old friend and lover is found dead in mysterious circumstances.
Back for one last job in a Europe fractured into a hundred tiny principalities, with civil unrest and political instability the norm, she must navigate local authorities, rogue operatives and Russian spies.
What she doesn't know is that the investigation will take her to places she couldn't even imagine.