Paul Richter Books

The Cold War is over, but Russia's arsenal of nuclear weapons is still in place. And when an emissary from an international terrorist group makes a disaffected Russian minister an offer he can't refuse, the survival of the West hangs in the balance... America and Europe have been seeded with nuclear weapons—strategically located in major city centers—by a group of renegade Russians and their secretive Arab allies. Maverick trouble-shooter Paul Richter finds himself up against a mastermind determined to bomb America back into the Stone Age. Caught up in a tense battle of wits and bullets, he only realizes the full horror of what is about to be unleashed on the world as the attack on the West begins. Richter is the only man with the knowledge and ability to stop it. And time is running out.

The second high-adrenalin, techno-espionage international thriller featuring maverick British agent Paul Richter. Off the island of Crete an illicit diver finds a 30-year-old aircraft wreck on the seabed. From amongst the corpses still strapped inside he recovers a steel case containing four sealed flasks. The rogue diver manages to cut one of them open . . . but within twelve hours succumbs to a hideous death. Agency trouble-shooter Paul Richter is delegated to investigate the source of the mystery killer, but encounters far more questions than answers. Why has the CIA directed total destruction of the aircraft’s remnants? Why is a hit team roaming the island to eliminate anyone with close knowledge of the missing flasks? Who is now picking off members of the hit team itself? And why are retired agents back in America getting professionally eliminated? As Richter gets ever closer to unraveling a decades-old secret, even he is unprepared for the sheer horror of the truth about to be disclosed. The shadowy world of covert operations and espionage unfolded at breakneck pace by a writer with first-hand experience.

The third high-octane techno-espionage thriller featuring agent Paul Richter In 1976, a Russian front-line pilot defected to Japan in a MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor, flying virtually at sea level to avoid pursuing fighters and surface-to-air missiles. With about 30 seconds of fuel remaining, he landed at Hakodate Airport, bursting a tire and skidding off the runway. Before the aircraft was handed back to the Russians, American intelligence agencies reduced it to a pile of components and then rebuilt it—but they completely failed to realize the purpose for which the Foxbat was created. Now, American satellites have detected unusual activity at several Algerian air bases, and at Aïn Oussera one large hangar has been cordoned off and armed guards posted outside. Western intelligence agencies suspect that Algeria might be planning an attack on Libya or Morocco, and that they might be keeping new aircraft or weapon systems in the guarded hangar at Aïn Oussera. The only way to find out is to get someone to look inside the building, and it will have to be a covert insertion. This is where Paul Richter is called in, as "a deniable asset," in an exciting non-stop thriller that moves rapidly through Bulgaria, Russia, and ultimately North Korea

The fourth action-packed techno-espionage thriller featuring maverick British agent Paul Richter What should have been a routine arrest turns into a bloody shoot-out near Geneva that leaves four terrorists and four policeman dead, and Richter on the run from a murder charge. Closer to home, a homeless person is viciously murdered on the Isle of Sheppey, then a surveillance operation in Stuttgart goes badly wrong when someone tips off the terrorists that the police are closing in. As Richter looks for some connection between these widely separated events, he discovers a diabolical plot intended to devastate the city of London and leave thousands dead—a plot that will combine the world’s largest ever non-nuclear explosion with the power of the sea to deadly effect. As the tension mounts, Richter finds himself pitted against both a vicious and highly experienced professional terrorist and a ruthless gang of international criminals—but the identity of the mastermind comes as a shock to everyone.

Hauled back early from an exercise with the SAS, Paul Richter is tasked with a short-notice extraction job. It goes unexpectedly well, and as a kind of reward he’s given an easy one: he’s to investigate the case of James Holden, a middle-aged Englishman living in Dubai, who appears able to predict terrorist attacks. It should be simple – a break in the sun and a couple of days’ work at most – but, almost as soon as he arrives in Dubai, he is diverted to Bahrain. Then it all starts getting complicated. Who is the secretive patient in the Manama hospital? Who has slaughtered a dozen people at a remote stable in Saudi Arabia just to steal one horse? And why has a US State Department jet carrying a specialist CIA team been diverted to Cairo? Nothing seems to make sense until Richter finally uncovers the outlines of a plot that will come to fruition during the world’s richest horse-race. But, behind the scenes, an even more complex scheme is being executed and Richter is in a race against time to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack on the city of Dubai itself.

Nobody is ever above suspicion in the 'wilderness of mirrors' that is the world of intelligence, but when a senior officer goes bad it still hurts. When that senior officer can't be identified, it hurts even more. Conventional detective work to unmask him is going to be too slow, and probably unreliable, so an alternative strategy has to be formulated. With the security of Britain's most secret computer system at stake, and trust a commodity in short supply, a deception operation is set in train to flush out the traitor. Paul Richter, an unemployed ex-Naval aviator, is the unwitting and ultimately expendable bait in the trap. But as the net closes around the traitor in France, a female Russian intelligence officer flees Moscow and the evidence she brings points the finger of suspicion in a very different direction. With time running out, and nobody he can trust, Richter finds himself battling against both the British security establishment and trained teams of Russian assassins with orders to kill both him and the woman he's trying to protect.

Paul Richter is back! An African prince is gunned down outside a London restaurant. But this is no ordinary assassination. Who is the third killer? Why was there no threat warning? And why did the killers kidnap one of the bodyguards, a former SAS soldier? Paul Richter is sent on the case. Before long he is in a deadly game of cat and mouse, wounded and chased through the English countryside. Richter will have to rely on all his combat skills and luck to avoid retribution… A standalone novella in the Paul Richter series, Retribution shows James Barrington at his best: fast, action-packed and giving absolutely no quarter.

An earth-shattering plot, a race against time. Russia has developed a new offensive capability. It's devastating and, above all, secret. The world would be remade. But when a corpse turns up on the remote Arctic island of Svalbard, it soon becomes clear this was no accidental death. The body has been flagged by secret services and before long Paul Richter is sent to investigate. Meeting old friends, he plunges into a breakneck chase taking him from the frozen North to the rocky islands and blazing sun of the Azores. The stakes have never been higher. This time Richter is truly on edge, working at the limits of global survival... Frightening in scale and plausibility, based on the most up-to-date science and intelligence, this is the most gripping Paul Richter thriller yet, perfect for fans of James Phelan, Chris Ryan and Andy McNab.

A death that doesn’t make sense. A forgotten experiment. The world’s most devastating weapon. A weapons scientist in Cambridge is found dead under suspicious circumstances. Then a researcher at military science centre Porton Down goes missing. Paul Richter is on assignment in Amsterdam, chasing a lead from the GRU. What he finds is deeply worrying. Old weapons research is being unearthed, and powerful people blackmailed to keep the truth behind the two incidents hidden. As events spiral out of control, leading to an epic culmination on the Red Sea, Richter must battle against time to unravel this sinister plot, or face the full, unimaginable consequences... From bestselling author James Barrington comes the next scintillating installment in the Paul Richter thriller series, perfect for fans of James Deegan, Chris Ryan and Andy McNab.