Frederick Forsyth · 1996 · thriller

Frederick Forsyth's 1996 thriller. A cleaner in a Moscow office steals a document from a desk and dies for it, and the manifesto reaches the West: the frontrunner in the coming Russian election intends camps, purges and a war. With no official channel available, London and Washington send in a retired CIA officer whose old networks may still be alive.

1. 1
   Washington

   The Black Manifesto reaches American and British intelligence, and neither government can act on a stolen document about another country's election - so a private committee of former statesmen decides to do it unofficially.

2. 2
   London

   In London the committee assembles the operation and finds its man: Jason Monk, the best agent-runner the CIA had in Russia, retired to a fishing boat after his networks were sold to the KGB by a traitor in his own service.

3. 3
   Moscow

   Monk goes back into a Moscow of gangsters, private armies and a collapsing state, reactivating agents who have every reason to refuse him - to destroy a candidate's reputation before the country votes him into power.