The Black Hat, first novel in the Noir Intelligence series

Forensic psychologist Alexandra Belliveau is en route to Luxembourg City to attend her mother's funeral. The joie de vivre from her childhood had since been beset by hapless events linked to the mother's career as a French counterintelligence agent and, before that, a member of the Maquis, the French resistance during the war. At the funeral reception, Paul Bernard, her first puppy love from decades past, introduces himself. Also present is a stalker bent on killing Alexandra for associations her mother once had. In addition, there are foreign agents focused on keeping Alexandra alive until they obtain an ingenious code her mother had developed during the Cold War. Alexandra and Paul are in a quandary - who can they trust?

Reviews

Lost in the world of European intelligence gathering in World War II, the reader follows the lives of the children of these agents as they unravel the secrets of their parents' dangerous careers. Alexandra Belliveau and Paul Bernard are joyfully reunited after forty years and become entangled in the lingering tensions of the war. They risk their lives to find the truth, travelling across Europe to meet members of the Fourth Reich, enlisting the help of the CIA, MI6 and others, who can't always be trusted. Their love affair is given added spice by their encounters with neo-Nazis, accidents on their Harleys, kidnapping and tea with Sir James on the White Cliffs of Dover.

-- Sally Jenkins, editor

H.B. Dumont has skilfully presented a riveting tale of intrigue and human emotion through the compelling mastery of the quill. The author weaves words of dialogue and description of the most tender human passion and sociopathic brutal violence. This novel is a gripping and dynamic novel with wide appeal.

-- Lynn Denise, author & coach for writers

Through mastery of the English language, H.B. Dumont has written a gripping and dynamic tale of espionage and intelligence gathering with a backdrop of Cold War Europe with tentacles reaching back to World War II. It is a brilliant portrait of the human experience.

-- Hugh Carter, author

The Black Hat - pokkari, Englanti, 2021