Excerpt from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Pamela leaned toward the mirror. Smoothed her lipstick with the tip of a finger. It was a deep red Guerlain shade from New York; Ave had brought her several of the special green-topped lipsticks the last time he visited his wife. Which of the men, she wondered, would want to kiss her tonight? And give her power over him—for as long as she liked?

Moody, dangerous Ian—or his piano-playing friend?

She smiled at her reflection. Pamela Digby Churchill was very like a mirror. A hard and beautiful surface few things could crack.

—

THE MAN IN THE WHEELCHAIR found the bulk of the Great Pyramid a comforting presence in his sitting-room window. He was smoking a cheroot near the open casement, unconcerned by the desert's dropping temperature at dusk. It had taken him nearly two weeks to reach Egypt, first by naval vessel and then by air, and he felt drained. The constant effort to pretend otherwise—to appear strong and sharp and to stand upright for the cameras, even if it meant supporting his useless lower frame with his whitened knuckles pressed hard against a desk's surface—was growing tedious. He wanted time and space to think. These brief moments in the shadow of vast stones were precious, like a deep breath drawn at high altitude.

"Sam," he said, removing the cheroot from his mouth, "is there some kind of threat I should know about?"

"You mean besides the Germans, Mr. President?"

"Rommel turned tail a year ago. You know that."

Sam Schwartz, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secret Service chief, peered out the window. The villa placed at their disposal belonged to Alexander Kirk, the U.S. ambassador to Cairo. It sat within spitting distance of the Mena House Hotel, where this conference was taking place. Roosevelt found the villa comfortable and airy; Kirk was a flamboyant man who spent his cash well. The food was better than the White House's. His son Elliott and his daughter Anna's husband, John, were both traveling with him, and they seemed to be having a high old time. Nobody'd mentioned security. But Schwartz would be acutely aware of it: he'd prepped Kirk's villa for this visit, installing wheelchair ramps and making sure the Signals equipment was specially wired. Roosevelt had glimpsed Schwartz's men at strategic spots, indoors and out, with a startling number of Thompson submachine guns. One of the smaller hotel dining rooms had even been doctored with a false ceiling and soundproof walls, so that no hint of high-level discussions could reach Cairo—where any number of spies would love to pay for it. When he and Churchill sat down to talk, Roosevelt thought, the whole world tried to listen. Their chats determined who would live and die.

"The State cables are clear, sir. Nobody outside of Egypt even knows we're here," Schwartz said. As though Franklin were a small child who needed soothing. Or a cripple, trapped in a rolling chair.

After twenty years, Roosevelt was used to the numbness in his legs—but he'd never learned to accept his vulnerability. If an attack came, he'd be unable to run from the whistling bombs or the sudden hailstorm of machine-gun fire. What galled him most was the idea that somebody else might die in a crisis because they'd turned back to save him. But from the moment of landing on the dirt airstrip at Giza a few days before, he'd known there was no safer place in North Africa. Mena House was an armed camp. Acres of gardens, stables and chicken coops, a languid pool terrace, and a golf course were cordoned off with barbed wire and a brigade of British infantry. Five hundred anti-aircraft guns were pointed at the sky. The hotel's guests had been dismissed the previous week, and the entire staff was offered a vacation with pay. Enlisted men now worked as Mena House waiters. A tent city filled with soldiers from all over the U.S. and the British Empire stretched behind the hotel. They had overrun Alex Kirk's villa, too. The transformation blared to the world: Stand back or die.

Excerpted from Too Bad to Die by Francine Mathews. Copyright © 2015 by Francine Mathews. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.