Malraux
Scent of the Viper
by Ray Sproule

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Matthew Thorne, a former Army intelligence officer fresh off an adventure in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, is sent to Morocco in 1959 on a perilous mission. As a favor to a shadowy éminence grise named Aristide, Thorne takes on the task of searching for Malraux, a missing French Secret Service agent. From a deadly caravan trek into the Sahara to an abandoned Foreign Legion fort, Thorne finds himself surrounded by sandy graves and lurking vipers. In a desert climate of betrayal and intrigue, Thorne must determine the truth behind friend and foe alike—and getting out alive becomes the ultimate mission.

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Ray Sproule has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has been writing fiction from an early age and has been influenced by scores of writers ranging from Ken Follett, Le Carré and Clive Cussler, to Nabokov and Dostoevsky. This is his sixth full length novel. He was born in Montreal and raised two sons as a single parent. He lives on Vancouver Island, B.C. and enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, chess, tennis, and karate.

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Ray Sproule