Bogus Bills: Return to Cyprus

The fifth Cyprus-based espionage thriller novel in the Koniotis Mystery series is played out in the context of a futuristic environment. There has been a peaceful political settlement on Cyprus of the long-running Greek-Turkish issue and much has changed on the now loosely unified Island. In the setting of this new Cyprus, UN undersecretary general for security, Takis Koniotis, and his archaeologist wife, Caitlyn Spenser Koniotis, become embroiled in a terrorism-sponsored international counterfeiting campaign to flood the European market with counterfeit currencies.

For some years the couple has been living principally in New York City, but Takis finds himself in Cyprus for consultations at the UN’s international crimes investigations unit and Caitlyn is here on a lecture tour on ancient archaeology. In a Cyprus now very much under the thumb of RayGo, a corporation constructed around its ownership of a new process for storing solar heat for power generation, and of its CEO, an old friend/foe of the Koniotises, Caitlyn is beset with the counterfeiting issue the moment she steps off the hydrafoil at Limassol. Those behind the conspiracy include any number and combination of both new people entering the Koniotis’s lives and old friends and nemeses—some of whom come back into Takis’s and Caitlyn’s lives by surprise and with a big bang.