THE WOMAN FROM PRAGUE

Ash has been living in Prague for more than two months. His visa is almost up and he's not sure where to go next. A man comes to him--claiming to be from a government agency--and reveals that he knows Ash's connections to several major crimes: the murder in Book 2, the "terrorist act" in Book 3.

He blackmails Ash into doing a one-off mission for him. Apparently it's so hard to recruit and train covert agents, the government will sometimes blackmail ex-pats into missions that aren't important enough to risk an asset.

The mission goes very badly. Ash pisses off a legendary Spetznas hitter and ends up teamed with Sam, a foul-mouthed female spy who is not receptive to his brand of humor.

Ash and Sam, along with the guy who blackmailed Ash, and some other factions, are all after evidence that a US bank is funding a terrorist group in order to destabilize the oil market (oil prices are high, banks make a lot of loans and investments to increase production, market gets flooded, now oil is so cheap they can't recoup investments).

In the end, Ash doesn't know who to trust so he gets the information and releases it himself. He also makes the decision that he's done traveling (running) and it's time to go back home.

It's a unique spin on a spy novel. Most of the book is set in Prague but a chunk in the middle is set in Krakow.Hart is playing with local legends in both locations--the golem of Prague, and the pigeons of Krakow (believed to be reincarnated knights).