The final chapter in the series starring Italian spy Aba Abate, this time having to confront ghosts from a past she tried to bury, and the General, an unscrupulous man threatening the whole of European civilisation.

Aba Abate, code name Ice, has spent twenty years pretending she did not know Johnny Jazir and never loved him. Now he is dead because of her, she is trying to find solace in the middle of her grief by focussing on her family, which needs getting back into shape, and on her work, which presents her with a new threat: the General. He is an unscrupulous man who has been operating in the shadows for decades, but is now ready to carry out a plan of revenge and terror on all his enemies – starting with agent Ice – in order to reach the entire European civilisation.

The story of when it all began: when Aba Abate became Ice.

In that summer of 1999, Ice was still just Aba Abate, the daughter of General Adelmo Abate, the man at the head of the Italian secret service. A university student certain that she knew it all and could help make the world a better place. This illusion led her to play an active part in a game that was beyond her. A role play, a ghastly game of spies that began with an ordinary, misleading chess match with the man who would change her life. She was a moth, Johnny the flame that drew her irresistibly into a maze of conspiracy, danger, morbid obsession and deadly fanaticism.

She has paid the price – and keeps paying it still.

She is capable of deceiving everyone, herself included. Now, however, she knows it: the lies vital for survival are those we tell ourselves.

A compelling new adventure of Aba Abate, mother, wife and secret agent.

The breaking point between two apparently incompatible lives is approaching.

The boundary between Aba Abate, wife and mother, and Ice, a high-level Secret Service operative, grows thinner and thinner. She no longer knows if she will be able to hold together the pieces of her double life the way she has always done – not after discovering something her husband is concealing from her: a revelation concerning her, which has shaken the delicate foundations of her life, and not after losing –  while trying to arrest two terrorists as part of her work –  the only man who saw her for what she is: both Aba and Ice. What Aba doesn’t know, however, and Ice struggles to discover, is that in the silence of the desert the General, hidden under his anonymous balaclava, is about to trigger a plan that could throw the West into turmoil. All this at the cost of just one life. And it will be up to her to decide which one.

 A strong, exciting protagonist.

An ordinary and yet extraordinary woman.

A secret she cannot reveal even to her family.

English sample available

Aba Abate is the mother of two teenagers and the wife of Paolo, a naturally optimist advertising man. Aba does everything in her power to keep her family united although this is not always easy. Almost never easy, actually, because of her job. Because Aba Abate is also Ice: a spy and not a harmless civil servant, as her family thinks. Aba runs a network of mosque infiltrators and learns from one of her informers of some terrible news and a pressing deadline: a week from now, a little boy, a suicide bomber, is coming to Italy. So Ice has to intervene in person, in the field, if she wants to intercept the young man before he leaves Libya. However, none of the plans implemented yield the hoped-for results, and Aba’s entire world – both personal and professional – seems to come crashing down…