The
Gryphon Heist by
James R. Hannibal delves into the life of a rookie CIA operative.
This first in a two-book series explores the different possibilities
of where the next danger will come from. No stranger to secrets
and innovations, Hannibal can use his vast experience as a
former stealth pilot to bring realism to this story.
“What I want readers to get out of this is to create
a moralistic story about espionage. I started to realize there
is not a separation from G-d and the questions of morality.
Where is the line between right and wrong? In the end, I wanted
it as a story of forgiveness to let go of anger. There is
a need to learn to forgive in the face of extreme trauma.”
The book starts with a rookie case officer running an exercise
on “The Farm.” Talia Inger gets her first posting,
assigned to Transnistria, a forgotten backwaters country in
Eastern Europe, part of the disputed territory in Moldova.
The department handling this is known as "Other."
With her shady civilian partner, Adam Tyler, Talia takes a
deep dive into a world where only criminal minds and unlikely
strategies will keep the Gryphon, a high-altitude data vault,
hovering in the mesosphere. She and those working with her
must discover who is after Gryphon and then what will be necessary
to stop them from achieving access.
“Talia was written by me as someone broken but driven.
Her mother died at childbirth, and her dad died when she was
seven in a questionable car accident. She has a near perfect
memory yet is able to block the accident out. After her parents
died, she was placed in a ton of foster homes but was lucky
to find a good home. Because of her past, she is carrying
around a lot of anger and bitterness.”
After writing the Nick Baron series, Hannibal switched over
to writing teen mysteries. “For the last three years,
I wrote this series set in London and Europe with a “National
Treasure” bent. It might have been too thriller-esque
for some of the educators out there. I decided to write this
book that has just been released and the next book in rapid
succession.”
Fresh from a hiatus of adult political thrillers, Hannibal
has moved from writing about Nick Baron and his covert unit,
the Triple Seven Chase team, to a new team headed by Talia.
Hopefully, her adventures will be as riveting as Baron’s.
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