[Cole Sudden CIA Thriller 03] • Thawed!

“Pulitzer-nominee Lawrence De Maria has another winner in Cole Sudden, an assassin working in an obscure C.I.A. unit even the agency worries about!” – JOHN CRUDELE (New York Post)

"Well-drawn characters, tangled relationships, good-natured banter, up-to-date technological issues (drones, explosives, etc.) and a current events atmosphere create a rich array of interest hooks for readers. Siberia, the Kremlin, Marseilles, Jeddah and Louisville, Ky. -- for nothing less than a crescendo of action (beside the horse race) at the Kentucky Derby -- are part of the readers’ vicarious grand tour. Enjoy." (FLORIDA WEEKLY); “A master of thriller dialogue.” (WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS); “While De Maria may have been an award-winning financial reporter, he's an awfully good fiction writer as well.” (NAPLES DAILY NEWS)

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At a research station in Siberia, a Russian scientist reanimates an extinct virus frozen for 30,000 years! What could possibly go wrong with the so-called Tundra Virus? After all, it belongs to a class of contemporary viruses that are “harmless”. THAWED, a frightening tale of science gone amok, is ripped from today’s headlines. Arctic researchers have actually revived “extinct” viruses. Which means, of course, they are no longer extinct. The body count expands as intelligence agents from America and Russia race to stop a catastrophe planned by terrorists -- who are always one step ahead of them.

But the terrorists have made a serious mistake. They have inadvertently involved Cole Sudden and Rebecca Soul, two of the C.I.A.’s apex assassins, whose ruthlessness matches their own. Sudden and Soul have taken a very personal – and deadly -- interest in the Jihadists.

THAWED takes you from the frigid wastes of Siberia to the Kremlin, and then to a university laboratory in Southern France and the arid Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It finally reaches a shattering climax in the lush Blue Grass state of Kentucky.

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Winner of an Associated Press award for crime reporting, Lawrence De Maria later cut his teeth on financial corruption at The New York Times and Forbes.