Metal Viper: An International Human Rights Thriller: 1 (A Kae Zhang Thriller) - Softcover

Lovett, Sarah; Schultz, Ron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1644568845 ISBN 13: 9781644568842

Publisher: Indies United Publishing House, LLC, 2026

Synopsis

A 12-year-old writes a gentle poem. His regime sentences him to death.

For fans of Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, and John le Carré — a high-stakes international thriller grounded in one of today's most urgent human rights crises.

In Myanmar, ruled by a military junta that kills without mercy, hope itself is a crime.

When twelve-year-old VIKA's simple poem about hope goes viral, the regime arrests him — and sentences the child to death for treason. The uproar reaches KAE ZHANG, leader of Article 5, an elite international organization that has fought torture and political repression in the world's most dangerous places.

Now Kae and her team must do the impossible: extract one child from the heart of a military-criminal empire — while being hunted through the jungle by the junta's most feared weapon. They call him the METAL VIPER.

"An emotionally powerful journey through one of the most repressive lands on the planet. Lovett and Schultz have crafted a gripping tale and a compelling reminder of the wrenching toll of tyranny."

— Eliot Pattison, Edgar Award-winning author of Skull Mantra

"Metal Viper shines a rare — and much-needed — light on the dark realities of one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world."

— Richard Reoch, former Global Media Chief, Amnesty International

Perfect for readers of international thrillers, human rights fiction, political suspense, Southeast Asia spy novels, female-protagonist action thrillers, and books inspired by real-world authoritarian regimes.

Article 5: Kae Zhang Series Book 1 — More books featuring Kae Zhang and the Article 5 team are coming.

About this title

About the Authors

Sarah Lovett writes international and psychological thrillers about ordinary people forced into extraordinary choices. She is the coauthor of METAL VIPER, set against the shadow networks of modern Myanmar. Lovett is the creator of the bestselling Dr. Sylvia Strange psychological-thriller series (Random House; Simon & Schuster), inspired by her work researching criminal cases for the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. During a pause from the darkest subjects while raising her daughter, she collaborated with former CIA officer Valerie Plame on Blowback and Burned for Penguin; Blowback is under option for film (screenplay by Nicole Saad). Beyond crime and espionage, Lovett authored 35+ titles in the award-winning Extremely Weird children's series (recognized by the National Science Foundation and adapted as a network TV special). A Rockefeller Foundation grantee and former Padua Hills guest playwright, she continues to explore the costs of secrecy, the uses of power, and human resilience.

Ron Schultz has written, co-written and edited 30 published books on social innovation, meditation, emergence, science, and entrepreneurship. In 2014, he received the Social Innovation Leadership Award from the World CSR Congress. Among his books are: Creating Good Work - The World's Leading Social Entrepreneurs Show How to Build a Healthy Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); The Complex Buddhist - Doing Good in a Challenging World, (Emergent Publications 2015); Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation through Complexity, (Perseus Books, 1998, Emergent Publications, 2023) and Unconventional Wisdom - Twelve Remarkable Innovators Tell How Intuition Can Revolutionize Decision Making (HarperCollins, 1994). In addition to his non-fiction book publishing credentials, Ron has written two Thriller series: The Dorje Shapiro Investigations and A Kae Zhang Thriller series with Sarah Lovett. Metal Viper is the first book in that series, Ron has written hundreds of nationally published magazine articles, and has had an extensive career in television and film. His dozens of TV and movie credits include, according to IMDB, one of the finest Movies of the Week produced to date, The Switch (aired January1991, CBS), and one of the worst feature films ever made, NightRaiders, now a cult classic. He also wrote six of the first thirty-six episodes of the internationally renowned children's television program, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. He was also a staff writer on the cartoon series, ZORRO.Ron has spoken and lectured at: The Skoll World Forum, the World CSR Congress, the Social Enterprise World Forum, the Oxford Jam and numerous Social Enterprise Alliance Summits. The universities at which he has spoken include: Trinity College, Dublin, Oxford University, MIT, UCLA, Adelphi University, and the Academy of Management's National Conference. Ron did his undergraduate work at California State University, Northridge, which has recently accepted his archives for its collection.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indies United Publishing House, LLC
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1644568845
• ISBN 13: 9781644568842
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276