The day Mike Padillo walk into Mac’s Place in West Germany, everything changes. A customer is assassinated in the bar and owner Mac McCorkle discovers that Padillo, whom he has taken on as a business partner, is a spy for the U.S. Government. From a rather complex past. Mac has managed to establish himself in a simple, uncomplicated present. He likes his life — from the cheerful ringing of the cash register to the equally cheerful response of women to his charm and affluence. Now overnight, thanks to Padillo, he is thrust into a world more likely to end with a bang than a whimper. For what appears to be a routine assignment turns out to be a deadly game of espionage — a game in which the dealing is always double and the cards are often slipped from the bottom of the deck. Writing with polish and wit, Ross Thomas weaves his story with ingenuity and steadily mounting suspense to a chilling climax. His men are cool and intelligent, his women delightful, his plot full of unexpected twists. The Cold War Swap is a brilliant debut into the genre of espionage novels

In his brilliant first novel, The Cold War Swap, Ross Thomas introduced two witty characters named Mac McCorkle and Michael Padillo, a barkeep and a government agent, who become partners in a saloon and in the deadly game of espionage. The response of readers and critics to both the novel and the characters was extraordinary, and some reviewers hoped in print for another Thomas novel featuring the pair. Cast a Yellow Shadow is it. McCorkle and Padillo are back — McCorkle with a saloon, Padillo with trouble — this time in Washington, D.C. Padillo, who had dropped out of sight over a year before in Germany, suddenly turns up in Washington, stabbed but alive. Mac, tending to Padillo, discovers that his own wife has been kidnapped and is being secretly held by officials of a South African nation who want Padillo to assassinate their prime minister. To reveal more is unnecessary. Readers of Ross Thomas will expect excitement, violence, and unexpected twists, told with wit and skill — and they will get them and more in Cast a Yellow Shadow

A saloon owner and a former CIA agent team up to help a pair of assassins escape death The twins who walk into Mac McCorkle's bar look identical, despite their differing genders. Their names are Wanda and Walter Gothar, and from the steel in their eyes it's apparent that their business isn't the friendly kind. They've come seeking help from Mac and his partner, Padilla, an ex-CIA agent who has skulked in the world's darkest corners.   Anxious for a big payday, the twins took an assignment out of their depth, working as bodyguards for a Saudi prince who came to Washington to sign an oil deal. The job fell apart, and now the twins are being pursued by the world's two finest killers­—who take out Walter without breaking a sweat. Now Mac and Padilla are faced with a choice: Save Wanda, or join her in the grave

Few seem to notice or even care when fifty-seven-year-old Steadfast Haynes, a veteran CIA hired hand, dies quietly — even discreetly — in a $185-a-day Hay-Adams Hotel room commanding a fine view of the White House. But official indifference turns quickly into panic when it’s discovered that Haynes’ estranged son, a Los Angeles homicide detective turned actor, has been offered $100,000 for all rights to his father’s memoirs — sight unseen-by an anonymous bidder. Realizing that someone wants to bury the memoirs as deeply as possible, the thirty-two-year-old Granville Haynes seeks guidance from McCorkle and Padillo, the owners of Mac’s Place, a Washington bar and grill that some regard as an undesignated landmark and others as a notorious nest of intrigue. Accompanied at times by McCorkle and Padillo, and frequently by McCorkle’s stunning young daughter Erika, the enigmatic Granville Haynes moves out of the twilight of Mac’s Place and into a dark Washington labyrinth of deceit, treachery, and murder