Mole Hunt by Paul Collins

Ford Street Publishing, 2011. ISBN 9781921665264.
Highly recommended by Pat Pledger.
Paul Collins has sent the plot outline for Mole Hunt that went around to publishers:
Special Agent Maximus Black excels at everything he attempts. The problem is, most of what he attempts is highly illegal. Recruited by the Regis Imperium Mentatis when he was just fifteen, he is the youngest cadet ever to become a RIM agent. Of course, being a certified sociopath helps. He rises quickly through the ranks, doing whatever it takes to gain promotion. This includes murdering the doctor who has certified him, as well as a RIM colonel who Black deems to be more useful dead than alive. Now seventeen, he is a valuable member of a highly secret task force whose assignment is to unearth a traitorous mole. Unfortunately for RIM he is the mole, a delightful irony that never ceases to amuse him.
In the two years he has been with RIM he has only met his match once. Anneke Longshadow, another RIM agent, who nearly succeeded in exposing him. But nearly wasn't enough. Now she is dead and he is very much alive to pursue his criminal activities.
Right now, Black has a new problem. One that will challenge him to the max. He has a lot of work to do and little time to do it but as with every facet of his life, he plans each step with meticulous precision.
Maximus needs to find three sets of lost coordinates to rediscover the power of the dreadnoughts - a powerful armada of unbeatable power, long since put into mothballs by the sentinels whose job it is to keep peace and harmony in the ever expanding universe.
Sadly for Black, complications arise. It seems Anneke Longshadow isn't dead after all. Every bit his match, Anneke eludes the traps Black sets for her. Born on Normansk, a planet with 1.9 gravity, Anneke is more than capable of defending herself against Black's hired help, the insectoid Envoy, and his professional mercenary and hitman, Kilroy.
Power-hungry, Black usurps the throne of Quesada, a powerful crime syndicate. His ultimate aim is to replace the Galaxy gate-keepers, RIM, with his own organisation. Matching him step by step, Anneke collects as her allies all those who Maximus has deposed in his march to becoming ruler of the universe.
Paul Collins
Melbourne June 2011
Editor's note: Read a post from Paul, relating his experiences as an author.
Pat Pledger