Hodder & Stoughton are publishing a new edition of Ted Allbeury’s Cold War conspiracy thriller THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY today in paperback, as well as the first unabridged audiobook of the novel. First published in 1980, the period in which the spy classic is set, THE TWENTHIETH DAY OF JANUARY explores the consequences of a presidential campaign influenced by Russian forces. Its reissue is set 'to coincide with the current political climate'.
What if the Soviet Union gained control over the US Presidency?
SIS agent James Mackay fears that this may already be happening when he realises the newly elected president's press secretary is a former communist radical with links to the KGB.
When the witnesses who support his suspicions are systematically eliminated, MacKay must race against time to prove that the President-Elect is not his own man before Inauguration Day and avoid a national catastrophe.
THE TWENTIETH DAY was re-published in the US last year by Dover Editions.
Ted Allbeury was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the UK Intelligence Corps during World War II, and later an executive in marketing, advertising and radio. He began his writing career in the early 1970s and became well known for his espionage novels, but also published one general novel, THE CHOICE, and a short story collection, OTHER KINDS OF TREASON. His novels have been published in twenty-three languages, including Russian. He died in 2005.
Praise for Ted Allbeury
‘No one since le Carré has mapped the lonely lunar landscape of espionage better than Allbeury.’ – Observer
'The doyen of contemporary spy writers.' – Daily Telegraph
‘The most consistently inventive of our novelists of espionage, the one that other thriller writers point to as the finest craftsman among them.’ – The Guardian
'Certain things are constants, and Ted Allbeury is one. Book after book, the prolific British writer of espionage tales has maintained a superior level.' – New York Times
‘No one picks through the intelligence maze with more authority or humanity than Allbeury.’ – The Sunday Times