Death Stake

Trasker, Book 2

By: Andrew Mayne

Narrated by: James Anderson Foster

The trail of missing coders leads a spy into an international underworld of treachery, double agents, and digital espionage in a propulsive thriller by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

Retired intelligence operative Brad Trasker heads security at a remote aerospace facility when there’s a major breach. A photo of their top-secret AI-designed hydrogen engine has surfaced online. Trasker’s investigation into who did it soon leads to a start-up in Bangkok, where its three software developers have disappeared, along with nearly a million dollars in investment money.

Following their tracks, Trasker hits a dead end. The start-up’s HQ is a padlocked crime scene. No one—not the cagey locals, the mobbed-up gangs, or the Royal Thai Police—is keen on answering Trasker’s questions. But their message is clear: get out of Bangkok or die.

Hunted by assassins, Trasker is drawn into the same complex high-tech underworld of cryptocurrency, digital espionage, and betrayal that swallowed up the runaway coders. As the line between ally and enemy blurs, and the stakes become life and death, Trasker must navigate the dangerous intersection of modern intelligence and old-school spy games to survive.

©2024 by Andrew Mayne Harter. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A slick and amiable thriller with a series of colorful backdrops.”—Kirkus Reviews

Best Trasker So Far

Andrew Mayne has been a favorite author ever since listening to The Naturalist in 2018, a book I've listened to more than once, it's that good. Trasker is a new series for Mayne and while I wasn't sold on Brad Trasker, retired intelligence agent with a ruthless reputation in The Night Owl, Death Stake was wonderful. One of the aspects I enjoyed was how realistic the descriptions of Bangkok streets, alleys, marketplaces, apartment complexes were, and so much more that provided rich background as Trasker investigated the execution of three young computer coders, pursued the one young man who escaped the assassination, and evaded pursuit, capture, and death by black op mercenaries and corrupt policemen. Mayne wrote with decent knowledge of cryptocurrency and it's use to transfer enormous amounts of money around the world without any government oversight or intervention. This is an exciting book, and Trasker has a lot of catching up to do in the new world of digital espionage. Fortunately, he's brilliant and his memory technique serves him well while he tries to save the life of a young coder who is wanted by almost every major government around the world.