A PLAGUE OF SAILORS — Brian Callison

The first of two Callison thrillers featuring First Mate Brevet Cable, the most unorthodox merchant seaman ever to sail during the Cold War. It is just before dawn in a remote Scottish glen. At the main gate of what appears to be a hydro-electric station two bored watchmen count the minutes before they're relieved. Then, abruptly, the distant headlights of an approaching vehicle interrupt the tranquil scene ...

... and we are pitchforked into one of the most sensational terror plots of recent decades, in which germ warfare is harnessed to the needs of ruthless fanatics - a merchant vessel ploughing across the Mediterranean with a cargo of relief supplies for earthquake-racked Israel; ambush and murder on the high seas; the transformation of eight thousand tons of golden grain into eight thousand tons of golden genocide; a dramatic ramming which leaves the reader almost as breathless as the protagonists; the final explosive dénouement with its bitter ironical twist ... in A Plague of Sailors the stakes are the lives of a whole nation and the risks proportionally high.

'Compelling and unputdownable ... as always Callison takes hold of his readers and the grip remains until the last page is turned. The action and the drama are there all the way.' Grimsby Evening Telegraph