What do you get when you combine espionage with the collapse of financial markets? 'Jericho's Fall,' an engaging spy thriller by Stephen L. Carter, the bestselling author of 'The Emperor of Ocean Park.'

In the tradition of master spy thriller master Tom Clancy, Carter spins an intricate tale of the shady underworld of spies, intelligence agencies, and financial swindlers that rival the Bernie Madoffs of the world.

The story revolves around Jericho Ainsley, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and a Wall Street mogul; and Beck DeForde, his former student and lover. The relationship ended in scandal and so did Ainsley's career. Now, he is dying of cancer at his mountainside home in Colorado when he beckons DeForde to his bedside.

She assumes it is to say goodbye, but instead DeForde is plunged into a dramatic battle over an "explosive secret that foreign governments and powerful corporations'' want to pry from Ainsley before he dies.

Below is an excerpt from the suspenseful thriller:
"Darkness bore down on her as the car shuddered up the mountain,'' Carter writes in the chapter one. "Distant lights danced at the edge of her vision, then vanished. Beck wondered how bad it would be. In her mind, she saw only the Jericho she had loved fifteen years ago and, in some ways, still did: the dashing scion of an old New England family that had provided government officials since the Revolution.

"One of his ancestors had a traffic circle named for him in Washington,'' he writes. "A cousin served in the Senate. The family's history was overwhelming; the Jericho for whom Beck had fallen had certainly overwhelmed her. He had been brilliant, and powerful, and confident, and fun, ever ready with eternal wisdom, or clever barbs. She did not like to think of that mighty man ravaged by disease. She had no illusions. She remembered what cancer had done to her own father.

"Whatever was waiting, she had to go.''

Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University, and the author of seven nonfiction books. 'Jericho's Fall' is his fourth novel. He and his family live in Connecticut.