Time to Kill
The seemingly innocuous mission of a part-time British spy and devoted family man soon places the lives of his loved ones in dire jeopardy
Family man, estate agent, and ex–army infantryman Roger Taine has already served crown and country exceedingly well, most recently by derailing an insidious conspiracy by modern-day fascists. Now the Foreign Office is asking for his help once again. A former adversary of Taine’s claims to be turning over a new leaf and is offering to expose a plot by East German Communists to infect British livestock with a deadly disease. What at first seems to be no more than a ludicrous invention of an overactive imagination soon draws Taine into the lethal crossfire of an internal power struggle between opposing Red factions, plunging him into a secret war that threatens to turn the waters off the Dorset coast crimson with human blood. But for Roger Taine, the stakes have never been higher—for if he falters in his mission to prevent the unthinkable, it could cost the lives of his own beloved children.
In this riveting sequel to the acclaimed A Rough Shoot, one of the most able and prolific thriller writers of the twentieth century delivers a superb Cold War adventure brimming with action and unrelenting suspense. A Time to Kill is a gripping tale of intrigue and danger with a breathtaking climax that will keep readers perched on the edges of their seats.
Geoffrey Household
Geoffrey Household (1900–1988) was born in England. In 1922 he earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from the University of Oxford. After graduation, he worked at a bank in Romania before moving to Spain in 1926 and selling bananas as a marketing manager for the United Fruit Company.
In 1929 Household moved to the United States, where he wrote children’s encyclopedia content and children’s radio plays for CBS. From 1933 to 1939, he traveled internationally as a printer’s-ink sales rep. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer for the British army, with posts in Romania, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Persia. After the war, he returned to England and wrote full time until his death. He married twice, the second time in 1942 to Ilona Zsoldos-Gutmán, with whom he had three children, a son and two daughters.
Household began writing in the 1920s and sold his first story to the Atlantic Monthly in 1936. His first novel, The Terror of Villadonga, was published during the same year. His first short story collection, The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories, appeared in 1938. Altogether, Household wrote twenty-eight novels, including four for young adults; seven short story collections; and a volume of autobiography, Against the Wind (1958). Most of his novels are thrillers, and he is best known for Rogue Male (1939), which was filmed as Man Hunt in 1941 and as a TV movie under the novel’s original title in 1976.
