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Kirk McGarvey is the featured character in the techno thriller Kirk McGrvey series of novels by David Hagberg, the popular American novelist from Minnesota. The first novel in the series was “Without Honor” that was first published in 1989, before it spawned more than a dozen more titles.
Order of Kirk McGarvey Series
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Without Honor | 1989 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | Countdown | 1990 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | Crossfire | 1991 | Description / Buy | |
| 4 | Critical Mass | 1992 | Description / Buy | |
| 5 | High Flight | 1995 | Description / Buy | |
| 6 | Assassin | 1997 | Description / Buy | |
| 7 | White House | 1999 | Description / Buy | |
| 8 | Joshua's Hammer | 2000 | Description / Buy | |
| 9 | The Kill Zone | 2002 | Description / Buy | |
| 10 | Soldier of God | 2005 | Description / Buy | |
| 11 | Allah's Scorpion | 2006 | Description / Buy | |
| 12 | Dance with the Dragon | 2007 | Description / Buy | |
| 13 | The Expediter | 2009 | Description / Buy | |
| 14 | The Cabal | 2010 | Description / Buy | |
| 15 | Abyss | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
| 16 | Castro's Daughter | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
| 17 | Blood Pact | 2014 | Description / Buy | |
| 18 | Retribution | 2015 | Description / Buy | |
| 19 | The Shadowmen | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
| 20 | The Fourth Horseman | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
| 21 | 24 Hours (Short Story) | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
| 22 | End Game | 2016 | Description / Buy | |
| 23 | Tower Down | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
| 24 | Flash Points | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
| 25 | Face Off | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
| 26 | First Kill | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
| 27 | McGarvey | 2020 | Description / Buy | |
| 28 | Gambit | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
| 29 | Traitor | 2022 | Description / Buy |
Kirk McGarvey the protagonist of the novel series is an ex CIA agent who had been trained to fight the Soviets for years before he fell out of favor. He lost his job during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, after the bureau phased out his type to make way for a gentler kinder type of intelligence officer. The former spy is now spending his mid-forties running a bookstore in Europe.
The first novel in the series “Without Honor” kicks off with the hijacking of a plane on the way to Cuba, a situation that leaves four CIA agents among four other people dead. The CIA lacks the necessary expertise to investigate and bring the culprits to book, but knows of a man with special skills to do just that – McGarvey. Kirk McGarvey has a dark past which comes back to haunt him even as he tries to reintegrate back into normal society.
Unable to resist the call to help the agency find the spy who is operating in the highest levels of the American government, he makes his return into US intelligence. He soon discovers that the intelligence world never really changed, and that he is still the same man he was before he left. What follows is an explosive narrative of deception and deceit, where survival means you cannot trust anyone. The novel is a fascinating suspenseful read that shows why McGarvey has been on the shortlist for numerous awards, and even won the Best Spy Novel at the American Mystery Awards.
KIRK MCGARVEY AWARDS
Three novels in the series “Critical Mass”, “Crossfire”, and “Countdown” were winners of the Best Spy Novel at the American Mystery Awards sponsored by Mystery Scene Magazine.
BEST KIRK MCGARVEY BOOKS
Crossfire: The third novel in the series that was made into a movie is one of the best novels in the Kirk McGarvey series. The novel is a crazier version of the Tom Clancy novels, with an insane plot full of fast-paced action and romance. It starts with a man infiltrating the American embassy in plain sight of the personnel and security with the help of a false identity. The man is a KGB agent Arkady Lurshin, who is in the embassy on a mission to plant bombs intended to bring down the embassy.
Meanwhile, the man he is impersonating is whiling his time with one of his lovers with no clue of what is happening at the embassy. He arrives just in time to find the impersonator has left, leaving him saddled with accusation of being responsible for the attack. The fireworks follow as he finds himself roped by the Russians into a plot to sabotage an American Iranian diplomatic overture. He will have to catch the impostor or else cooperate with the Russians and betray his country to get out of the fix.
Critical Mass: The fourth novel in the series that was also an award-winning novel sees Kirk McGarvey living the peaceful life of marital bliss. His tranquility is broken when Isawa Nakaruma, a man that lost his entire family to the Hiroshima bombings comes after him looking for revenge. The man holds McGarvey personally responsible for his loss, and proceeds to kidnap and torture his wife, and then murder his girlfriend. It gets even worse when McGarvey learns that the man plans not only to kill him, but also to detonate nuclear bombs in San Francisco and Los Angeles two of Americas largest cities.
Countdown: The third novel in the series is another riveting read that sees a US submarine “The USS Indianapolis” vanish while conducting training maneuvers off the Italian coast. Meanwhile, a Pershing missile is stolen from a highly secured West German Air Force base. Arkady Kurshin one of the KGB’s finest and his boss Colonel Valentin Baranov who heads the KGB are believed to have been responsible for the two incidents. To recover and prevent the two KGB officers from committing one of the most heinous acts of terrorism, McGarvey needs to track down Kurshin before the clock runs down. If he fails, the world as we know it will cease to exist.
OTHER BOOK SERIES YOU MAY LIKE
Fans of the Kirk McGarvey series of novels will also love the “John Gardner‘s Bond” series of novels by John Gardner. The series is a reenactment of the world’s most famous hero James Bond, as he helps Western governments deal with a variety of global threats and villains while having a lot of fun romance along the way.
Many of the Kirk McGarvey fans also recommend the “Jonathan Quinn” series of novels by Brett Battles. Jonathan Quinn is a Jack Reacher type of character, who is freelancing for a secret US intelligence agency known as “The Office”.
What Is The Next Book in The Kirk Mcgarvey Series?
There doesn't seem to be an upcoming book in The Kirk Mcgarvey Series. The newest book is Traitor and was released on April, 26th 2022.