With explosive tension and masterful suspense,A Handful of Kingsis a page-turning thriller about what really happens in the world of espionage, by an insider who has lived it.American diplomat Vicky Sorrell learns the hard way that all is fair in love -- and espionage.A Handful of Kings,the latest novel by prolific author and former foreign service officer Mark Jacobs, follows Vicky's fast-paced tour of duty -- one where she must decide who the bad guys are, who is lying, and who just might be telling the dangerous truth.Vicky is changing her life. She is leaving the foreign service and her lover at the same time. But before she departs the U.S. embassy in Madrid for home, a well-known American writer shows up with a strange request. Vicky knows that what the writer wants from her is not necessarily what he is asking. But curiosity leads her to play along, and she is quickly drawn into the murky underground of terrorists and spies into which the writer himself has been reluctantly led. The track she takes is full of wrong turns. And at the end of the tunnel, it's not light she sees but an unspeakable threat to people she loves.Recalling Graham Greene inThe Comedians,Jacobs weaves an engrossing story that takes place over three continents and illuminates the unexpected ways people betray and defend one another and, ultimately, how they learn to love.

Mark Jacobs is a former foreign service officer who served as cultural attaché and information officer in Spain, Turkey, and several posts in Latin America. He has published three previous books and more than sixty short stories in a range of literary and commercial magazines.