An international thriller by acclaimed journalist and investigative reporter Adam LeBor.

Yael Azoulay does the United Nations' dirty work. Her job is to cut the behind the scenes deals that oil the wheels of superpower diplomacy and big business – the ones we never get to hear about. Equally at home in the caves of Afghanistan, the slums of Gaza and Baghdad, and the world's corporate boardrooms, Yael can sweet-talk warlords, terrorists and CEOs. Until she decides that the ends no longer justify the means and goes rogue.

The book opens in Goma, eastern Congo: Yael is negotiating with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide. She offers him a deal: surrender to the UN tribunal, in exchange for a short sentence and a return to politics. The West's hunger for Coltan, a mineral vital for computers and mobile telephones found in Congo, means nothing matters more than stability in the region. But Yael soon realises that Hakizimani ordered the death of her brother, and that the UN is prepared to not only turn a blind eye to mass murder but to sanction it. The Great Powers are planning to launch a continent-wide war to impose a protectorate on Congo, and thus take control of Coltan. With the knowledge she has obtained she is both hunted by the world's intelligence and law enforcement agencies - while haunted by her past -- ultimately learning that salvation means not just saving other’s lives but confronting her own inner demons.

Set against the landscape of New York City, Switzerland and Africa, The Geneva Option is the first in a trilogy of topical, gripping and highly intelligent conspiracy thrillers featuring Yael Azoulay. Feisty but emotionally vulnerable; sophisticated but never cynical, complex yet driven by a powerful moral sense, Yael is a 21st century heroine. Written by a high-profile foreign correspondent and critically acclaimed investigative journalist who has exposed a series of international scandals from the complicity of Swiss banks in Nazi money-laundering to the passivity of UN officials during genocide, the Yael Azoulay trilogy takes the reader on a gripping journey through the secret corridors of power where the decisions that shape all of our lives are taken.