With a mini-summit coming up, a trip to France is imminent. For Detective Chief Superintendent Shard and his Foreign Office boss, Hedge, this isn't going to be a delightful trip full of gastronomic delights and the Folies Bergeres…
When the capture of Stanislav Asipov at Heathrow is botched, he gives almost no information â€" much to the annoyance of the Foreign Office. But when a key witness singles him out, the investigation takes a different turn.
With the investigation drawing him to a commune led by a Texan hippie, Shard infiltrates with a female colleague. But then there are the Avengers of St Petersburg, a group with a deadly grudge against the USSR. Who is to blame? Or is it some other sinister force?
This is an exquisitely-paced crime thriller, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and Peter Robinson.
Philip McCutchan began writing in 1956. Prior to this, he joined the Royal Navy on the outbreak of World War Two as an Ordinary Signalman and ended the war as a lieutenant, having served in destroyers, aircraft carriers, cruisers, a battleships battlecruiser, an armed trawler, and an ocean boarding vessel. For three years after the war he sailed in Orient Liners on the Australian run and then for a time became an assistant master in a preparatory school.
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