A Death in Geneva is a thriller set against the background of late-1970s terrorism in Europe. The novel crisscrosses Europe, the United States, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic in tense and violent action pitting terrorists against one of America"s richest industrialist families. Constance Burdette, the American Ambassador to the European Organizations of the United Nations, is cut down by machine gun in a bloody, well-planned murder in the streets of Geneva. She had been the President"s lover. In search of the Ambassador"s killers, Hanspeter Sweetman and Pierce Bromberger, American special agents handpicked by the Director of Central Intelligence, begin the tracking, working with intelligence operatives across the globe. The nation did not want to lose another battle in the war against mindless violence … and the President was monitoring the operation. The three assassins, two men led by a woman, begin stalking the late Ambassador"s brother, Thomas Madison Starring, America"s leading shipbuilder and operator of the Towerpoint International shipping fleet. The fortress city of Valletta and the islands of Malta provide an important part of the setting for A Death in Geneva. The plot unfolds through Malta, Rome, London, Paris, Great Yarmouth, New York, and the Chesapeake Bay. At sea, the novel opens in the Grand Harbor of Valletta, then shifts to the Atlantic and the Chesapeake aboard the deep-sea catamaran flagship of Starring"s fleet. Beneath the surface of the Chesapeake, the plot moves with stark tension and lethal action to the sea-floor habitat and the submersibles that carry the assassins on new and deadly missions. The climax of A Death in Geneva, 35 days after Burdette"s murder, moves to the very brink of a final, devastating act of terror that would be witnessed by the entire world. The setting is night, against the thunder and dazzle of 4th of July fireworks, in the Octagon mansion of the nation"s capital.