Dark Arena: The Frenchman Returns

by Jack Beaumont, Victor Bevine (Read by)

Overview

A high-stakes thriller that could be ripped from today’s headlines—from the bestselling author of The Frenchman.

Alec de Payns, espionage operative of the Y Division of the DGSE, France’s famed foreign intelligence service, is tasked with tracking down an agent of influence sending highly classified material against the Kremlin to embassies all over Europe.

A deadly conspiracy is aligning the West against Russia. But who is behind it? And to what end?

The clues lead to a secret meeting of businessmen, terrorists, and mercenaries on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, which de Payns must infiltrate. What he discovers sets off a Europe-wide manhunt in a desperate scramble to prevent an international catastrophe.

Former DGSE spy Jack Beaumont’s Dark Arena is another chillingly plausible thriller delivering all the taut plotting, superb action, and authentic spycraft that made The Frenchman a critically acclaimed bestseller.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798200861903
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Series:	The Frenchman Series , #2
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack Beaumont joined the French Air Force in his late teens, trained as a fighter pilot on Mirage 2000-5 single seaters for air-to-air combat, and was deployed in various conflicts. After being injured in a flying accident, he subsequently flew clandestine missions for French special forces and intelligence services before joining the DGSE, where he carried out clandestine operations in the field under false identities. He has since retired from the DGSE and is married with children.

Victor Bevine has worked extensively both in front of and behind the camera for over thirty-five years. His thirty-minute short film, Desert Cross, which he wrote and directed, won accolades at the Athens International Film Festival. His screenplay Certainty was chosen for two prestigious writers' conferences (LA Outfest, Hamptons International Film Festival) and served as the basis for his first novel, published in October 2014 by Amazon's Lake Union imprint. Victor spent two seasons as artistic director of the LA Classical Theatre Lab and has worked extensively with nonprofits in New York and Los Angeles teaching the power of storytelling to a new generation of young people in underserved communities. As an actor, Victor has appeared on and off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Circle in the Square, and Playwrights Horizons, on the big screen (most notably in the screen adaptation of John Knowles's A Separate Peace), and in dozens of guest and recurring roles on television. Victor is cofounder and CEO of the World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF), was coexecutive producer of MTV's Ultimate Parkour Challenge, and is cofounder of USA Parkour and the international nonprofit IPF, which is dedicated to the advancement of parkour and its positive impact on the lives of youth worldwide. A four-time Audie nominee, winner of multiple Earphones Awards, with over 350 narrated titles to his credit, Victor is proud to be among the corps of narrators and audio professionals dedicated to bringing great storytelling to a new world of "readers."

Editorial Reviews

Dark Arena is an intricate [novel] that provides an interesting new perspective on events in Europe in early 2022…Beaumont’s characters are also well-crafted, and are not the one-dimensional, gun-toting superheroes to be found in some fiction.”

Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine

“Dark Arena has a captivating and realistic plot that takes his excellent and complex characters into the heart of a recent history. Intense, addictive, and so damn intricate, Dark Arena was an exceptional read from a rising star in the spy thriller game.”

The Unseen Library

2023-12-16
An imperturbable French agent infiltrates a deadly cabal of international powerbrokers.

Veteran French secret service officer Paul Degarde, who works primarily as an analyst of Russian maneuvers, has the rare opportunity to be “James Bond for a day” in a brief operation between Prague and Paris. The sequel is less rousing: Russian thugs break into his Paris home, terrorizing Paul and his family before killing him. This richly detailed prologue subtly overshadows the story to come and infuses it with an undercurrent of menace. Though he’s more experienced in the day-to-day practices of international espionage, Alec de Payns, the hero of Beaumont’s elegant spy series, is also a family man, as he shows in repeated scenes of domestic bliss with wife Romy and sons Charles and Oliver. Alec undergoes a crash course in steward school to infiltrate an international group with designs on the oil market. The plot is compellingly intricate, if sometimes challenging to keep straight. But no worries. Beaumont, himself a former operative with the French foreign secret service, immerses the reader in the nuts and bolts of the spy’s life: covert meetings, murky alliances, fellow operatives with aliases and a taste for the high life. With its sporty cars, luxe hotels and beautiful backdrops all across Europe, this might be a classic spy yarn from Ludlum or le Carré. Beaumont writes evocatively about quaint villages and historic cities seemingly caught in a time warp. Alec’s wry colleague Shrek supplies some welcome comic snap.

A sophisticated espionage tale from an author who knows whereof he speaks.

Kirkus Reviews