Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow (USA 2011)

From the Publisher:
An old friend draws barman Mac McCorkle into a deadly international game
As the saying goes, you can't pick your friends. If you could, Mac McCorkle would disown Padilla. They owned a bar together in Bonn, the West German capital, and stayed partners even after Padilla's sideline as a CIA operative got the bar blown up. Padilla was thought to be dead and erased from the CIA's files -- but now he's back on the agency's turf.

Mac moved to Washington, DC, after the trouble in Bonn to get married and open his bar anew. His new bride is beautiful, the bar is a success, and Padilla's reappearance threatens everything. A group of African terrorists want Padilla to assassinate the prime minister of their small sub-Saharan republic -- and they've kidnapped Mac's wife to use as leverage.

Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow. Mysterious Press / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781453228173 (October, 2011), eBook, 5 MB (ca. 272 p.), $11.99.

Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow (USA 1968)

From the Publisher:
Padillo returns!
McCorkle's mysterious, dangerous-living silent partner, Mike Padillo, had disappeared without a trace more than a year before. Men who live the way Padillo does rarely reach middle age, anyway.

Now, suddenly, he's found, stabbed but still alive, in Washington. While Mac is tending to his friend, Mac's wife is kidnapped and held by officials of a South African nation who want Padillo to carry out their very bizarre -- and very nasty -- assassination plot.

And so the game is on!

"ROSS THOMAS has matched or possibly toppes his award-winning COLD WAR SWAP. In a Thomas novel there are no stereotypes, no stock actions nor reactions; you cannot tell the good guys by sex, nationality, amiability, or color; in fact, you cannot tell anything for dead certain until the last chapter. Don't miss any of it." CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow. New York: Avon Books, 1968, Avon S367, 192 p., 60¢.

Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow (USA 1967)

From the Publisher:
In his brilliant first novel, The Cold War Swap, Ross Thomas introduced two witty characters named Mac McCorkle and Michael Padillo, a barkeeper and a government agent, who become partners in a saloon and in the deadly game of espionage. The response of readers and critics to both the novel and the characters was extraordinary, and some reviewers hoped in print for another Thomas novel featuring the pair. Cast a Yellow Shadow is it.

McCorkle and Padillo are back - McCorkle with a saloon, Padillo with trouble - this time in Washington, D.C. Padillo, who had dropped out of sight over a year before in Germany, suddenly turns up in Washington, stabbed but alive. Mac, tending to Padillo, discovers that his own wife has been kidnapped and is being secretly held by officials of a South African nation who want Padillo to assassinate their prime minister.

To reveal more is unnecessary. Readers of Ross Thomas will expect excitement, violence, and unexpected twists, told with wit and skill - and they will get them and more in Cast a Yellow Shadow.

Ross Thomas was born in Oklahoma City, served with the Americal Division in the Philippines during World War II, and graduated from the

University of Oklahoma. He has been a reporter and an editor and public relations director for numerous publications, radio stations, national organizations and aspiring political candidates in the United States, Europe and Africa.

Mr. Thomas's first novel was The Cold War Swap. He is also the author of The Seersucker Whipsaw, a novel of political adventure. Cast a Yellow Shadow is his third book.

Ross Thomas presently lives in Virginia.

Ross Thomas: Cast a Yellow Shadow. A Novel of Espionage. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1967, 256 p., $4.50.