Pre-order
Buy to Win
1
of
1
The Amateur
Brief Description
A riveting thriller about an ordinary man's quest for extraordinary vengeance. Charlie Heller is a CIA cryptographer, a quiet man in a back-room job. He's not a spy, let alone an assassin. But when his beloved fiancée is murdered by terrorists and his employers refuse to...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2800
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Buy to Win
Purchase this title for your chance to win a
Penguin Classics Prize Pack!
Pre-order
Releases
20th
October 2026
(Approx. Date)
Pre-order "The Amateur" now to secure your copy from our first shipment
Found a better price? Request a price match
The Amateur
$2800
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Latest News
From Page to Panel: The Rise of Graphic Novel Adaptations
Discover why graphic novel adaptations are booming, from ‘Dune’ and ‘Sapiens’ to ‘Call Me by...
Why You Should Read Folk Horror!
If you're looking for a new read and haven't yet tried Folk Horror as a...
Movie Review on The End of Oak Street
Lizzy and Roopa are sharing their reviews of The End of Oak Street, a movie...
We Expanded Our Board Game Range…400+ New Games in Stock Now!
Board game week has arrived at Book Hero! 🎲 We’ve expanded our range, with 400...
What We Played: A Weekend Full of Board Games
What happens when you fill an entire weekend with board games? From family games with...
See more
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
A riveting thriller about an ordinary man's quest for extraordinary vengeance.
Charlie Heller is a CIA cryptographer, a quiet man in a back-room job. He's not a spy, let alone an assassin. But when his beloved fiancée is murdered by terrorists and his employers refuse to pursue her killers, Heller decides to take matters into his own hands.
Pursuing the culprits all the way behind the Iron Curtain, he is playing a dangerous game and doesn't know the rules. But even an amateur can outwit his enemies—especially when he's got nothing to lose.
The Amateur shows how an unexpected, driven protagonist can challenge his circumstances with compelling and gripping results.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241798720
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 23 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 17.0mm
Width: 128.0mm
Height: 197.0mm
Weight: 214g
Pages: 288
About the Author
Robert Littell was born in Brooklyn in 1935. He is the author of a group of novels set during the Cold War and its aftermath. He is best known for his books The Company (2002) and The Amateur (1981), which has twice been filmed, in 1995 and 2025, the latter film starring Rami Malik and Laurence Fishburne. His most recent novel is A Plague on Both Your Houses (2024).
Also by Robert Littell
View all-
Comrade Koba: A Novel
Leon Rozental—ten and a half, intellectually precocious, and possessing a disarming candour—is suddenly alone after the death of his nuclear physicist father and the arrest of his mother during the Stalinist purge of Jewish doctors. Now on his own and hiding from the NKVD in the secret rooms of the House on the Embankment, the massive building in Moscow where...Paperback$1999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Comrade Koba
After the sudden death of his nuclear physicist father and the arrest of his mother during the Stalinist purge of Jewish doctors, young Leon Rozental—intellectually precocious and possessing a disarming candour—is hiding from the NKVD in the secret rooms of the House on the Embankment, a large building in Moscow where many Soviet officials and apparatchiks live and work. One...HardbackSold Out -
The Company
The Company, a New York Times bestselling spy novel, lays bare the history and inner workings of the CIA. This critically acclaimed blockbuster from internationally renowned novelist Robert Littell seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational, wickedly nostalgic saga of the CIA—known as "the Company" to insiders. Racing across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of...PaperbackSold Out
More from Crime & Thriller
View all-
New ReleaseDying Days
Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Buy to WinNew ReleaseThe Country Road Murders
From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades — LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Every Lake
Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableBackorderShips late August -
New Release
Nautilus
The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New Release
Cold River
The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Buy to WinNew ReleaseIt Could Have Been Her
PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1 Sunday Times and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Buy to Win26 Beauties
The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New Release
The Secrets We Hide
The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author of We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Buy to WinThe Parkwood Murders
They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableBackorderShips mid September -
13% offHope Rises
'BALDACCI IS STILL PEERLESS' - THE SUNDAY TIMES REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD . . . Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him....Paperback$2700Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Slash
A year after a brutal shootout left her lover dead, ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers is a hot mess, drinking too much and eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators — while holding conversations with a ghost. A desperate father asks her to investigate his missing son — a double-murder suspect last seen during the...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
A River Red With Blood
The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They're very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing as long as everyone sticks to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game. But those rules...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
Crime & Thriller lists from the team
Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!
