In 1980, President Carter's chances of re-election were destroyed by the failure of the mission to rescue the hostages held in Iran. In the aftermath, the Iranians claimed to have discovered nine US bodies at the desert location where the mission disintegrated into chaos and tragedy, while the US authorities stated that only eight men were missing. Years later, an English monk - once an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland, whose life was torn apart by a disastrous undercover operation that led to his parents' murder - receives a US tycoon's deathbed confession that he was part of a sinister and successful conspiracy to sabotage the rescue. Dom Clement is dragged back into the world of threats and violence that he hoped to have left behind, with the original conspirators bent on keeping the plot and its murderous legacy buried by any means necessary. Who organised the greatest political coup of the 20th century, and what is the identity of that ninth man found dead in the Iranian desert? The Carter Conspiracy weaves a web of ingenious and utterly believable fiction around true historical facts.