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

"Blasted Orientals," Leathers continued, swallowing. "You'd think enough of our sort had died in that Boxer business to satisfy the bloodlust of 'em all. But no. Our yellow friends would rather the Japanese raped their women from here to there and sideways than we turned an honest pound selling tea. I ask you, Ian—"

"Don't," he interrupted, pouring out three fingers of Scotch and handing it to Michael Hudson. "Ask Hudders. He's the one who's got the President's ear. Does Roosevelt give a damn what Chiang Kai-shek wants, Michael? Or is he just throwing the Chinese a bone?"

The three men had met in one of the hotel's side lounges to brace themselves before dinner, which would be a protracted and formal affair—Roosevelt was hosting the American celebration of Thanksgiving tonight. He'd brought twenty-two turkeys to Egypt, along with his aide Harry Hopkins, a few generals, and assorted hangers-on like Michael Hudson.

Hudson had flown uncomfortably into Egypt in the cargo plane carrying Roosevelt's car. His job was something vaguely to do with Lend-Lease, the American program that allowed Britain to borrow everything from old ships to new hospital beds. Hence his chumminess with Lord Leathers—who had negotiated the British end of that deal. His chumminess with Ian Fleming had long since been explained. It was their chiefs' sixth bilateral meeting in two years, and the sight of Hudders and Flem clinking glasses in various conference rooms was old hat by now.

Ian knew that Hudson's title was simply cover for far more interesting work: he was one of Wild Bill Donovan's handpicked aides—a spymaster in the Office of Strategic Services. Ian had helped draft the blueprint for the OSS a few years back, during an official visit to New York. He'd probably gotten Hudders his job.

"A Yale man," he'd suggested, "by way of Eton and Durnford. You can't possibly find a better liaison, Bill. He already knows how the English think."

Ian was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, a deeply conventional and unimaginative sailor by the name of Rushbrooke. He did not like Rushbrooke much; he thought his mind small and his courage stillborn. As a consequence, Ian spent a lot of the war ignoring Rushbrooke's instructions and issuing his own. Liaising, when possible, with his American friends.

He was still whispering to Hudders in the companionable dark, plotting the ruin of their enemies. The Too Bad Club was alive and well.

"Of course FDR cares," Hudson said now. "Our boys are dying every day in the Pacific. Chiang's fighting the Japs. We need him just as much as you Brits need us."

"But does America need England anymore?" Ian threw himself into a chair by the carved sandstone fireplace; coal was burning feebly in its depths. "The PM's beginning to wonder. A few months ago it felt like a marriage made in heaven, Churchill and FDR. But the starch is off the bedsheets, the bloom is off the rose. Admit it, Hudders—we Brits bore you. We talk too much and haven't a fiver between us."

"Hear, hear," Leathers intoned.

There was an uncomfortable silence. The truth usually shut people up, Ian thought. He'd planned the Cairo meeting as he'd planned all the others between Churchill and Roosevelt, and he knew the Chinese were only a sideshow. Cairo was just the first stop on a far trickier journey ending in Tehran—where Roosevelt would meet Joseph Stalin for the first time.

Uncle Joe, as the American press admiringly called him.

Stalin had been keeping Hitler busy for years now, tossing cannon fodder at his guns on the Eastern Front. He'd tried to use the Nazi war machine to his own ends, but he'd been stabbed in the back and lost millions of people to starvation and siege. The Soviet strongman wanted only one thing from his allies in Tehran: Overlord. Their promise to invade Europe. As soon as possible. So that Hitler would turn around. So that Hitler would go home.

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.