Zero Effect

They told Brill Wingfield he was dead. Someone just sent him a message proving they know exactly who he is.

Brill Wingfield has spent three years trying to live a quiet life on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Then, one morning, his phone lights up with three words:

TAKE THE JOB.

No name. No explanation. Just a message from a number that should not exist—and a photograph taken during the hurricane that nearly killed him.

Thirty-eight days earlier, someone was watching Brill from a boat in the storm.

Someone who knew where he was.

Someone who knew what he was doing.

And now that same person knows where to find him.

The message sends Brill to Tampa, where his former handler, Marguerite, offers him a supposedly simple assignment: travel to the Republic of Georgia as security for Delphine Achterberg, a tough, brilliant U.S. trade official negotiating a massive Black Sea port concession.

It's supposed to be protection duty.

Soft duty.

A cakewalk.

Brill knows better.

Because there is another part of the assignment.

Osgood Pell.

Pell was Brill's mentor, the man who trained him to disappear, read a room, survive an ambush, and never be the most interesting man in it.

Pell was also presumed dead six years ago.

Now he's alive—and hiding in a tea warehouse in Batumi.

And he's asking for Brill by the name only a handful of people ever knew.

As Brill arrives in Georgia, the supposedly routine assignment turns deadly. A falling scaffold nearly kills him. A speeding scooter tries to finish the job. Someone is watching his movements, testing his defenses, and closing the distance.

Then Brill discovers that the Black Sea port deal isn't just about shipping.

Behind the concession is a maze of offshore companies, secret trusts, hidden money, and powerful people who have spent years moving billions through the shadows.

And at the center of it all is someone Brill knows.

Someone who once gave him orders.

Someone who was supposed to believe Brill was dead.

Now Brill has to protect Achterberg, find Pell, uncover who is behind the conspiracy, and survive long enough to learn why his old life has come looking for him.

Because some secrets don't stay buried.

Some ghosts don't stay dead.

And for Brill Wingfield, the most dangerous mission of his life may be the one that brings him face-to-face with the people who created him.

ZERO EFFECT is a fast-paced international action thriller packed with covert operations, espionage, assassins, political intrigue, deadly conspiracies, secret identities, international finance, Black Sea intrigue, and a highly trained retired operative pulled back into the world he thought he'd escaped.

If you like action-packed spy thrillers, retired intelligence operatives, international conspiracies, covert missions, political thrillers, espionage suspense, dangerous secrets, and intelligent action heroes, you'll want to read ZERO EFFECT.