Second Horseman » (Reprint)

Kyle Mills grew up in Oregon but, as the son of an FBI agent, he has lived all over the country and overseas. He is the author of seven novels: Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Free Fall, Burn Factor, Sphere of Influence, Smoke Screen, and Fade. An avid rock climber, he and his wife now live in Wyoming. Visit him online at www.kylemills.com.

"Edge-of-seat quotient: Sky-high."

—-Entertainment Weekly

"The perfect thriller for the emerging millennium . . . What makes this novel such a delicious summer treat is the way in which Mills turns the reader's expectations inside out. . . . The twists are surprising and fun, and the story comes to a bang-up conclusion."

—-Denver Post

"Mills's prose is crisp and his action skills are top-notch. In Fade, he has created a true thriller hero for the present and the immediate future."

—-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A thriller that manages to retain the Cold War staples readers have come to expect from the genre while remaining relevant to the post-9/11 landscape . . . this is a story for today."

—-Houston Chronicle

"Kyle Mills is a master of the page-turner. His attention to detail and his smooth style will keep you reading well into the night."

—-Vince Flynn, author of Memorial Day

"Lead character Salam Al Fayed—-Fade—-is a first-ballot certainty for the Thriller Hall of Fame."

—-Lee Child, author of The Enemy

"Kyle Mills has created in Salam al Fayed, aka Fade, a disturbing, complex and wholly original character. Fade will stay with you long after you have finished this well-crafted thriller."

—-Stephen Frey, author of Shadow Account

"Frighteningly real and powerful, Fade by Kyle Mills hurls the reader into a dark journey into the human soul. With suspense as taut as a dead man's smile, Mills blends fiction and fact in a heart-stopping, spellbinding tale of espionage and politics that is not only convincingly real but vastly entertaining."

—-Gayle Lynds, author of The Coil

Publishers Weekly

At the start of this strong thriller from bestseller Mills (Fade), career criminal Brandon Vale is in prison for a failed diamond theft when Richard Scanlon, an ex-FBI agent and security consultant, gets him released and offers him a job. The Ukrainian mob claims it has 12 nuclear warheads for sale, and Scanlon decides he'll save them from becoming ammunition in a terrorist plot by, with Brandon's help, coming up with the $200 million asking price by robbing a Vegas casino. With the aid of one of Scanlon's employees, Catherine Juarez, Brandon executes a brilliant plan, but finds himself mired in the terrorist plot. The likable Brandon wants nothing more than to be allowed to continue his life of cons and crime without the distractions of morality and patriotism, but this is not to be ("It was hard to believe that the planet's future-or lack thereof-was going to rest on the narrow shoulders of a thirty-three-year-old thief"). Fortunately for readers and the world, Brandon proves to be interesting, intelligent and more than equal to the task. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.