Pre-loved.
Royal Format.
'Have a safe jump, Mr. Corey.'
Detective John Corey is floating to earth, his skydiver's parachute billowing above him.
His wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, is mere metres away, beneath a chute of her own.
And clinging to Kate in mid-air, aiming a knife at her throat and a Glock at Corey, is the most dangerous man alive: Asad Khalil, code name The Lion - infamous terrorist, ice-blooded assassin, and Corey's greatest nemesis.
'I promised you I would return, Corey...'
It's been three years since Corey last traded words - and bullets - with The Lion, who vanished after a devastating attack on American soil. But with Khalil's spectacular return, the threat of a terrorist apocalypse now darkens the globe. The Lion wants revenge. And with Kate's life in the balance, so does Corey.
'One of us will be dead before long.'
Ingeniously plotted and breathlessly paced, packed with enough blistering action and heart-stopping suspense to level a city block, The Lion is the book of the year - the most gripping, the most exciting, the most relentlessly entertaining novel yet from one of the world's most popular storytellers.