Dark Arena: A Frenchman Novel (The Frenchman Series) by Jack Beaumont
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Written by a former French spy, Dark Arena is an espionage thriller that takes the reader through an invisible but violent battle for energy supremacy in Europe that led the invasion of Ukraine.

February 2022. An officer of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), the French foreign intelligence agency, delivers a package of top secret Russian military information from Prague to Paris, and is subsequently assassinated.

So begins a cat and mouse game across Europe as DGSE agent Alec de Payns races to find the source of what has become regular "drops" of highly sensitive information regarding Russian military operations. De Payns infiltrates the clandestine meeting a of Russian private military company, follows the trail of a shady individual codenamed Starkand, and nearly gets assassinated himself.

Meanwhile, de Payns marriage is falling apart and his mental state unraveling as his wife, Romy, pulls away from her increasingly paranoid husband. But as his personal life crumbles, his professional life makes a breakthrough and the DGSE are finally closing in on Starkand and the mysterious head of an American spy network--who is much closer to home than Alec ever imagined.
About the author
Jack Beaumont joined the French Air Force in his late teens, trained as a fighter pilot on Mirage 2000-5 single seaters for air-to-air combat, and was deployed in various conflicts. After being injured in a flying accident, he subsequently flew clandestine missions for French special forces and intelligence services before joining the DGSE, where he carried out clandestine operations in the field under false identities. He has since retired from the DGSE and is married with children.