Philip Page, a product of the flaming 80's, made millions in a scheme (with a now-dead Pakistani) buying and selling factories to Consol Electric with a promise of lucrative contracts for the product involved. But it all went sour, with Consol loosing big bucks and Page flying to California, leaving wife Marian and daughter Drusilla to be protected by longtime friend and mentor Henry Vyner. Now, three years later, Marian is dead, a suicide, and Page has been extradited back to London on the strength of documentary evidence of his chicanery, provided by an unknown source. One possible source is ex-cop John Raven's old friend and lawyer Patrick O'Callaghan, who claims innocence but is afraid of Page (one of Page's old connections has been found shot to death). Raven stows O'Callaghan in a safe place, gets to know Page, and arranges an ingenious trap that identifies the informer. A tricky assignment for Raven—at loose ends on his Thames houseboat (Raven's Shadow, etc.) since wife Kirstie is away—and a mildly intriguing puzzle for the reader. Read full book review >

Confusion reigns when John Raven, London's ex-Detective- Inspector, now a private investigator, gets involved in a high- stakes undercover scheme to buy coded computer discs from the files of the old Communist government in Czechoslovakia. It's there that Catriona Dunbar, daughter of a Canadian envoy working in Prague, knows that her father is on the verge of making a fortune. When he dies of a heart attack, her slippery boyfriend Henry Gratton flies to Prague and attempts to take over Dunbar's scheme. He winds up murdered, and Catriona asks Raven to try to find out what happened. Meanwhile, others are watching the murky proceedings—Britain's M15; megarich business man George Brewster; menacing go-between Rotbart; and professorial Teodor Brodsky in Prague. They all talk in timeworn spy-story clichÇs, adding no sparkle to the flat chronicle of Raven's domestic routines and pedestrian conversations with airhead wife Kirstie. Muddled, dull, and inconsequential. MacKenzie (By Any Illegal Means, 1990, etc. etc.) has done much better. Read full book review >