The spy game has a brand new player . . .

Sarah Black is startlingly smart and super frustrated . . . while her fellow fresh graduates are signing away their souls to square mile internships, she is sabotaging civil service exams and beating any chess opponent who dares face her. Surely there has to be more to life?

Enter, Michael.

Enigmatic, suave, and looking for a new recruit to his band of elite spies. His offer is irresistible, and Sarah leaps into the world of international espionage without hesitation.

But when Michael hears rumours of a catastrophic attack on an oil pipeline in the Caucasus, he whisks Sarah from London to Georgia with a new identity, a meagre brief and no backup.

Thrown into a hostile environment where nothing is as it seems, and no one can be trusted, Sarah must learn the rules of the game quickly, just to survive.

But is she really a player, or merely a pawn?

‘Bond, Bourne . . . now Black. Sharpe has served up a spy novel for the 21st century and a magnificent protagonist to lead it. Sarah Black is bold, brainy, and badass! And believable too – this story is as authentic as it is exciting, from the magnificently crafted cast of characters to the incredibly well-drawn locations. Gripping, pacy, and intelligent, I couldn’t put it down’ – Daniel Aubrey, author of Dark Island

‘The Recruit introduces an impressive, complex, resourceful recruit to British espionage, and a world that is shabbier, darker, more ambiguous and far more compromised than the MI6 of James Bond. But it’s every bit as tense and exciting . . . this is a sharply written thriller that is also sharply contemporary’ – Michael Russell, author of the Stefan Gillespie thrillers