Richard Legrand, Spymaster

"An exciting, deadly realistic spy novel." Roanoke Pilot

You've read about James Bond, Matt Helm, Jason Bourne, and Gabriel Allon, agents sent on ultra-deep-cover missions to singlehandedly counter deadly plots and return home undetected and, ideally, unscathed.

What of the spymaster who must minutely scrutinize intelligence, assay it for developing threats, select the trustworthy person best fitted for the assignment, and then send that spy out on a deadly assignment, often into enemy territory itself?

Meet Major General Richard LeGrande, the USA's answer to George Smiley. He knows each of his agents personally, their strengths and weakness and hopes and dreams-and he watches over each and every one of them, doing his utmost to ensure they return home safely from each and every mission. He is aware of the thousand things that could go wrong, with fatal results for his operatives.

LeGrande is the chief spymaster, head of GENOPS, an ultra-secret government intelligence agency tasked only with the hardest, most dangerous and most critical jobs-the ones with no room for error, where the consequences of failure are so high the mission simply must succeed.

"A novel of the dedication behind the men and women who serve their country by violating their consciences. The Kilroy Gambit is a distinctly different story of international espionage and planning for defense.

LeGrande must act fast and think faster if he is to pull America's chestnuts out of the fire before U.S. agents are compromised and killed. Here is taut tale of espionage, and the perils and fears faced daily by the USA's lonely, vigilant spymasters.


"One of GENOPS' most closely-guarded secrets is immanently in danger of being discovered. In Afghanistan. GENOPS has stashed one of its clandestine caches of war material, designed to be easily accessed by the USA in case of armed warfare in the region (Operation Kilroy). The cache lies on the route Russia would have to take if it wanted its soldiers to penetrate directly into India.

"At the same time Sen. Lloyd, desperate for headlines and reelection, gets hold of a turncoat in GENOPS who feeds him highly-colored information about LeGrande, which the Senator uses to convene a congressional hearing that will impress his constituency in the Midwest just before his upcoming reelection. But it will expose both Operation Kilroy and the existence of GENOPS.

"Their face-off in a congressional hearing is the highest dramatic spot of the book. The Kilroy Gambit sums as a good yarn, even a stirring one." -The Albany Herald

Irwin R. Blacker was a former operative of the CIA and a Peabody award winning television writer.