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Karen Cleveland
Photo Credit: © Jessica Scharpf

Karen Cleveland

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Karen Cleveland spent eight years as a CIA analyst, focusing on counterterrorism and working briefly on rotation to the FBI. She has master’s degrees from Trinity College Dublin and Harvard University. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two young sons. Her first novel, Need to Know, was critically acclaimed, a Simon Mayo Book Club pick, and a Sunday Times bestseller.

Books by Karen Cleveland

Keep You Close

FBI agent Steph Maddox never expected to be investigating her own son . . . Should she trust him, or fear him?
The hotly anticipated new thriller from Karen Cleveland, author of Sunday Times bestseller Need to Know

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Need To Know

You know him. You love him. You trust him. Until today . . .
For fans of GONE GIRL and THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR, NEED TO KNOW is the most relentless psychological thriller you will read all year.

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More features

Article
10 things you didn’t know about life in the CIA

Author Karen Cleveland shares the inside scoop on life inside America’s CIA.

Article
Five minutes with Karen Cleveland

The author of espionage-thriller Need to Know on her real-life inspiration for the novel.

Video
Need to Know by Karen Cleveland

Vivian Miller is a CIA analyst assigned to uncover Russian sleeper cells in the USA. After accessing the computer of a potential Russian spy, she stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents living in her own country. Five seemingly normal people living in plain sight. A few clicks later, everything that matters to Vivian is threatened – her job, her husband, even her four children... Learn more - https://www.penguin.com.au/books/need-to-know-9780593079607