DEATH STAKE is professional magician Andrew Mayne’s second novel with Brad Trasker, following last year’s NIGHT OWL. The magic that Mayne works on the reader is that he turns a series based on corporate military espionage into a spy thriller worthy of the Jason Bourne books.

At the start of the novel, Brad Trasker receives a phone call from an extremely angry Colonel Melchor. Trasker heads up security for Wind, a remote aerospace company, and reports to the dynamic CEO, Kylie Connor. It seems there may have been a major breach of privacy when a photo of their top-secret AI-designed hydrogen engine suddenly appears online and was seen by Colonel Melchor. Trasker, a retired intelligence operative, is amazed to learn that the responsible party is a nondescript young man who works at the Chinese fast food restaurant Panda Express.

"The finale of DEATH STAKE is explosive and propels Andrew Mayne to new heights in a career that already boasts dozens of novels across different genres that continue to get better and better."

Josiah Levenstein is approached by Trasker, who persuades him to turn over his cell phone, laptop and anything else that may have been involved in the posting of the photo. He claims that he was contacted by some hacker on the web and was paid handsomely for his services. Trasker is alarmed to learn that shortly after they parted ways, Josiah went to his car and killed himself with a pistol. He is no fool and recognizes that the fear Josiah must have felt after being found means that he needs to locate the dangerous people who paid for the picture to be posted.

With the help of a former colleague, Trasker is able to identify that the individuals involved are based in Bangkok and work for the technology firm xQuadrant. Kylie and the rest of the team at Wind are aware of this group, and she even confesses to having invested a lot of money in them --- money that seems to have been squandered with nothing to show for it.

Trasker attends a convention of other military and aerospace professionals with Kylie and meets Rebecca Gostler, who shares a similar story about the young men at xQuadrant. It turns out that the main operator there is Vik, who works in Bangkok. This is reason enough in Trasker’s mind to justify the need to take a trip to Bangkok and seek out Vik to see if they’re working as spies for one of our enemies, like Russia, China or Iran. He insists on going there alone as he was once very familiar with the area from his military days.

When he arrives at the address for xQuadrant, Trasker finds a seedy apartment that is not only torn apart but has a police tag on it claiming that it’s part of an investigation. Trasker gets hung up on by the detective in charge of the case and has to find out from the local 7-11 owner that three young men were attacked, tortured and executed in that apartment. When he gets the opportunity to briefly view the bodies, he finds that not only were they badly tortured but one body had the head and both hands removed. It seems that the police force are not to be trusted and may be under the thumb of local gang lords, which makes relying on them useless.

Attempts are quickly made on Trasker’s life, including a high-speed chase involving motorcycles. Trasker feels like a definite outsider who may have set a target on his own back. That is until he hears a familiar voice calling out his name at the hotel where he's staying. He’s not surprised to find out that it’s Rebecca. They team up in search of answers, but it soon becomes obvious that he might not be able to trust her either.

Trasker finds himself in one dangerous situation after another, which pushes him that much closer to the answers he seeks. The finale of DEATH STAKE is explosive and propels Andrew Mayne to new heights in a career that already boasts dozens of novels across different genres that continue to get better and better.