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9781874061892

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A sly, cunning bastard, sharp observation, well-observed characters, an authentic London voice and terrific style * Time Out *

London ex-cop and hard-boiled gumshoe Jimmy Jenner (Dead Birds, p. 99) gets an urgent summons from his police-days chum Peter Moody - and arrives at Moody's posh flat just in time to discover the bloody corpse of a Middle Eastern-looking woman. What's going on? Did Moody kill the woman? And should Jenner help Moody (an elusive fugitive) to flee to Europe? Before making up his mind, Jenner indulges in a longish flashback: Moody's mysterious expulsion from the police-force; his subsequent alcoholism and emigration to Canada, where he apparently made a fortune in horticulture and/or gunrunning. Back in the present, Jenner does help Moody - only to find himself harassed by enigmatic Special Branch agents, one of whom turns up dead on his doorstep. It soon emerges that Moody is some sort of spy, perhaps a traitorous one who's been shrewdly framed by British Intelligence. But, with a rendezvous in Salzburg and a shootout/showdown back home, several more twists await - most of them, unfortunately, excessively familiar ones for readers of the le Carre generation. Still, as in Dead Birds, Jenner - one-legged (thanks to a terrorist bomb), estranged from cop-wife Judy - is a dourly appealing narrator, especially amusing here in his Francophobia. So, though the plotting this time is more murky than clever, some readers (those partial to spy-convolutions, anyway) may hang on for the meandering, bumpy ride. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

John Milne was born in Bermondsey, 1952 and trained as a painter but only after false starts as a policeman and a factory worker. He lives in Bradwell on Sea, Essex. He was the author of Alive & Kicking, Dead Birds, The Moody Man and Daddy's Girl, along with The Antigallican, (under the pseudonyn of Tom Bowling), the first part of a projected three part historical naval series.

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