The Cold War never ended. It just got hotter.When American intelligence operative Griffin Mercer is dispatched to Morocco to hunt down an international criminal, he uncovers a far more dangerous conspiracy: twenty canisters of stolen Tabun nerve gas are missing. His hunt to recover them leads him to the spy-infested city of Zurich, East Asia's casino empire in Macau, and whispers of a ghost submarine lost to history.Her name is Bao Nguyen. Once a South Vietnamese exile, now the most feared pirate in the Pacific. With a stolen Soviet attack sub, a blood feud against communism, and plans that could incinerate a continent, she's more than a myth-she's Mercer's new target.But in a world where no one plays straight and every alliance hides a knife, Mercer finds himself gambling with more than his cover. To stop a madwoman with a nuclear submarine and a vendetta, Mercer is pulled into a high-stakes game of betrayal, baccarat, and brinkmanship-with millions of lives in the balance.High stakes card games, deadly nerve gas, and a Pirate Queen with nothing left to lose. TASTE OF VENOM is a gripping espionage thriller set in an alternate 1990s, where the world has been reshaped by limited nuclear war. Alliances have frayed, superpowers smolder, and shadows rule the battlefield.