Her life was destroyed when the plane carrying her family crashed. Now Stephanie will do anything for revenge....Recruited by a covert intelligence organization, she makes a deal. Complete their lethal assignments and they'll let her kill the murderers who destroyed her family. Young, smart, and beautiful, she becomes an assassin with two covers--"Petra," a terrorist-for-hire in Germany, and "Marina," an international businesswoman in London.Immersed in the brutal, high-stakes world of international terrorism, Stephanie begins to ask some deadly questions. Is the organization telling her the truth, or are they using her for a darker reason? Is avenging her family worth losing her soul? And will the organization that created her let her go--or is she already the next target? She's got one chance to escape--if she lives long enough to take it."Drums and bass are the rhythm section. Your heart is the drums, your breathing is the bass. You get those two sorted, then you're sorted. You can't panic when your breathing's under control and you've got your pulse in check. It's not physically possible."

The Rhythm Section

Burnell, Mark

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

HARPER/COLLINS

Soon to be a major motion picture, from the producers of the James Bond film series, starring Jude Law and Blake Lively.
She has nothing to lose and only revenge to live for
She thought her life was over…
Stephanie Patrick's life is destroyed by the crash of flight NE027: her family was on board and there were no survivors.
Devastated, she falls into a world of drugs and prostitution – until the day she discovers that the crash wasn't an accident, but an act of terrorism.
Filled with rage, and with nothing left to lose, she joins a covert intelligence organization. But throughout her training and operations she remains focused on one goal above all: revenge.

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Harpercollins

Chameleon

They are chameleons. Beyond the law, beyond morality, they’ve survived by adapting, whatever the circumstances. And by trusting nobody but themselves.
IT’S A QUESTION OF IDENTITY.
Stephanie Patrick, a woman who was more comfortable under an alias than she was with hersef, she traversed the world and forgot who she was. Now, she wants to put all her pasts behind her.
Konstantin Komarov. The FBI call him the Don from the Don. Today, at the heart of a financial empire created by the Russian crime pandemic, he’s as comfortable in Manhattan as he is in Moscow or Magadan.
Between them exists Koba, an old alias for a new threat.
In a world where trust is weakness, honesty is naivety, brutality is routine, could falling in love be the greatest risk?

The compelling sequel to Chameleon. The third novel featuring the spicy, redoubtable but tender Stephanie Patrick finds her still paying back her obligations to Magenta House, and living an apparently normal civilian life in London. But then a remarkable new issue envelops her, forcing her back into her former life. Scientific and weapons secrets and personnel are being sent via the people-smuggling routes from China, through Albania and the former Yugoslavia to Europe and Britain. Stephanie's personal feelings for one of the victims of this trade causes her to make a rare professional mistake, and the consequences are far-reaching, vicious and challenging, even for her skills and expertise. Mark Burnell has written another gripping, intelligent thriller, which will appeal to fans of Robert Harris and Michael Connelly. Gemini is a welcome return for a unique heroine, and a compelling sequel to Chameleon.

Gemini

HarperCollins, Publishers

The unique Stephanie Patrick returns in another brilliant thriller by Mark Burnell. Icily professional, Stephanie has been living life as her alias - the professional terrorist - Petra to the full. Having completed an intelligence contract in St. Petersburg she returns home, but civilian life eludes her when she is lured to France by the call of a friend in need. In Paris, a bomb-blast triggers a chain of events which contaminates every aspect of Stephanie's life. It's clear that she's been betrayed. But by whom? She must identify the threat before she can run from it! Stephanie saves herself by taking a hostage, but soon the tension between captive and captor accelerates dangerously beyond her control. As powers shift critically, Stephanie struggles to maintain Petra's professional cool, and to hold herself together. Ultimately, she's the only one who can save them - but will it be at the price of the hostage's life? Mark Burnell has written another gripping thriller which will appeal to fans of Robert Harris and Michael Connelly. The Third Woman is a welcome return for a unique heroine.

The Third Woman

Contemporary

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

In a world where everyone and everything has its price, who do you trust? The Third Woman is a powerful and fascinating thriller following the adventures of Burnell's unique heroine Stephanie Patrick. From conspiracy to terrorism, Vienna to Paris, will she find the truth?The world isn't run by governments. It's run by corporations. In other words, everything and everyone has a price.Stephanie Patrick operates under a number of names; Petra Reuter, known as a gun for hire, is probably the one she uses most frequently. She used to work for the government. Now she works for herself.Robert Newman, who spends more nights at 35,000 feet than in his own bed, is an international troubleshooter. But twenty years at the top have still not purged for him the ghosts of the past.A plea for help from an old friend draws Stephanie to Paris, where she narrowly survives a terrorist attack, an outrage that according to the authorities was masterminded by Petra Reuter. Betrayed in every way, pursued ruthlessly by a faceless enemy, her identity stolen from her, Stephanie seizes a hostage to give her a slim possibility of escape. But is the encounter with Robert Newman really just chance?Hunted from Paris to Vienna, Stephanie and Newman are forced together to survive. Yet the more she learns, the closer Newman seems to be to the heart of the conspiracy. Stephanie becomes sure of only one thing: that the answers will lie with the person who she knows as The Third Woman.'The Third Woman' is vividly contemporary, with a welcome return for a unique heroine.

The unique Stephanie Patrick returns in another brilliant thriller by Mark Burnell. Icily professional, Stephanie has been living life as her alias - the professional terrorist - Petra to the full. Having completed an intelligence contract in St. Petersburg she returns home, but civilian life eludes her when she is lured to France by the call of a friend in need. In Paris, a bomb-blast triggers a chain of events which contaminates every aspect of Stephanie's life. It's clear that she's been betrayed. But by whom? She must identify the threat before she can run from it! Stephanie saves herself by taking a hostage, but soon the tension between captive and captor accelerates dangerously beyond her control. As powers shift critically, Stephanie struggles to maintain Petra's professional cool, and to hold herself together. Ultimately, she's the only one who can save them - but will it be at the price of the hostage's life? Mark Burnell has written another gripping thriller which will appeal to fans of Robert Harris and Michael Connelly. The Third Woman is a welcome return for a unique heroine.

Genre Fiction

The debut of an extraordinary new author -- a novel of how a woman, pushed over the edge by the violent deaths of her family, survives only by taking other identities.  Stephanie Patrick's world was destroyed by the Atlantic aircrash. Falling into a downward spiral of prostitution, drugs and drink, she is picked up by a journalist who has discovered that it was a bomb that caused the crash. And it is his murder that pulls her out of herself.  The Rhythm Section is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it's not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie's attempt to reclaim herself. She has to rediscover who she is through a series of roles that she is forced to play; she is never herself. As a prostitute, she is Lisa, the chemical blonde. Later, she is Petra Reuter, German anarchist turned mercenary terrorist. Sometimes, she is Marina Gaudenzi, a Swiss businesswoman, or she's Susan Branch, an American student, or Elizabeth Shepherd, an English management consultant. But whoever she is, she's never herself because her life depends on her being someone else. This is the way she is trained by the intelligence service that recruits her, but it's also the way she's taught herself to be; being someone else has always worked for her and so it does now, until she begins to fall in love for the first time with Frank White. This undermines her completely and poses new questions: which of the many people she has become is the one to have fallen in love? Stephanie? Petra? Or one of the others? With whom has Frank fallen in love? Marina? Or the real Stephanie? More than anything, The Rhythm Section is about a catastrophic crisis of identity.

Harpercollins MD

The Rhythm Section (The Stephanie Fitzpatrick series)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Burnell, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Burnell, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Burnell, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rhythm Section

The Rhythm Section

Chameleon

Gemini

The Third Woman

The Third Woman

The Third Woman

The Rhythm Section

Chameleon

The Rhythm Section (The Stephanie Fitzpatrick series)