Christopher Marlowe Cobb Books

In The Hot Country , Christopher Marlowe Cobb (“Kit”), the swashbuckling early 20th century American newspaper war correspondent travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war, the American invasion of Vera Cruz and the controversial presidency of Victoriano Huerta, El Chacal (The Jackal). Covering the war in enemy territory and sweltering heat, Cobb falls in love with Luisa, a young Mexican laundress, who is not as innocent as she seems. The intrepid war reporter soon witnesses a priest being shot. The bullet rebounds on the cross the holly man wears around his neck and leaves him unharmed. Cobb employs a young pickpocket to help him find out the identity of the sniper and, more importantly, why important German officials are coming into the city in the middle of the night from ammunition ships docked in the port. An exciting tale of intrigue and espionage, Butler’s powerful crime-fiction debut is a thriller not to be missed.

World War I is in full swing. Germany has allied itself with the Ottoman empire, persuading the caliphs of Turkey to declare a jihad on the British empire, as President Woodrow Wilson hesitates to enter the fray. War correspondent and American spy Christopher Marlowe Cobb has been tasked to follow a man named Brauer, a German intellectual and possible secret service agent, into perilous waters aboard the ship Lusitania, as the man is believed to hold information vital to the war effort. Aboard the Lusitania on its fateful voyage, Cobb becomes smitten with famed actress Selene Bourgani, who for some reason appears to be working with German Intelligence. Soon Cobb realizes that this simple actress is anything but, as she harbors secrets that could pour gasoline on the already raging conflict. Following the night of the infamous German U-Boat attack on the Lusitania, Cobb must follow Selene and Brauer into the darkest alleyways of London, then on to the powder keg that is Istanbul. He must use all the cunning he possesses to uncover Selene’s true motives, only to realize her hidden agenda could bring down some of the world's most powerful leaders.

In the third installment of his critically acclaimed Christopher Marlowe Cobb series, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler continues to win over readers with the artfulness of his World War I settings and his charismatic leading man, a Chicago war correspondent turned spy. It is 1915, and President Woodrow Wilson is still assessing the war’s threat to the United States. There is a mole in the British government, and Cobb’s intelligence handlers send him to a castle on the Kentish coast to investigate a key suspect, Sir Albert Stockman. Working deep undercover, Cobb must also contend with an unusual sidekick—his own mother, the beautiful and mercurial Isabel Cobb. A famous stage actress, she is starring in a touring production of Hamlet and has been recruited to simultaneously keep tabs on Stockman, who happens to be an ardent fan. As the trio leaves the relative safety of Britain and heads into the lion’s den of Berlin, Kit must unravel Stockman’s secret agenda, and remain in character even under the very nose of the Kaiser.

With Paris in the Dark , Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler returns to his lauded Christopher Marlowe Cobb series and proves once again that he can craft “a ripping good yarn” ( Wall Street Journal ) with unmistakably literary underpinnings. Autumn 1915. World War I is raging across Europe but Woodrow Wilson has kept Americans out of the trenches―though that hasn’t stopped young men and women from crossing the Atlantic to volunteer at the front. Christopher “Kit” Cobb, a Chicago reporter with a second job as undercover agent for the U.S. government, is officially in Paris doing a story on American ambulance drivers, but his intelligence handler, James Polk Trask, soon broadens his mission. City-dwelling civilians are meeting death by dynamite in a new string of bombings, and the German-speaking Kit seems just the man to figure out who is behind them―possibly a German operative who has snuck in with the waves of refugees coming in from the provinces and across the border in Belgium. But there are elements in this pursuit that will test Kit Cobb, in all his roles, to the very limits of his principles, wits, and talents for survival. Fleetly plotted but engaging with political and cultural issues that deeply resonate today, Paris in the Dark is this series’ best novel yet.