The Lions of Lucerne

The Lions of Lucerne is a thriller by the American writer Brad Thor, published in 2002 and the first of his novels about Scot Harvath.

Harvath is a Secret Service agent who came to the job from the Navy SEALs, and the attack on the President's party leaves him the only person who saw enough to doubt the report. He believes the avalanche was an ambush built around a diversion, and when the official inquiry goes nowhere he starts asking his own questions, which makes him useful to nobody. The trail leads to Switzerland, where a group of men who profit from the arms trade have interests in what the American government does next. Thor writes the book as a chase with a professional at the centre: firearms, border crossings, an enemy with money and patience, and a man whose own agency has stopped helping him.

The novel introduced a character the author has returned to in a long series of political thrillers, and it was his first published novel.