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A DOUBLE DECEPTION by Clive Egleton

A DOUBLE DECEPTION

by Clive Egleton

Pub Date: July 1st, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-07736-X
Publisher: St. Martin's

Heroism and betrayal in wartime Warsaw haunt late 60's London- -in the latest thriller from Egleton, who previously paired England and Poland in Last Act (1991). The hitherto largely tidy life and career of British intelligence officer Campbell Parker begins to grow disorganized with the arrival in his office of beautiful, Polish-American businesswoman Stephanie Ayres. Ms. Ayres has taken advantage of a London assignment in order to search for her late mother's brother Andrew Korwin—the last survivor of an aristocratic Warsaw family who went missing in the chaos of wartime Poland after heroic resistance work. Now, the private investigator she hired to help with the search has gone missing, as has the mysterious German who tipped her to the news of her uncle's existence. In fact, all leads on Uncle Andrew have gone to ground or run up against official roadblocks. Parker is able to use his Foreign Office connections to pick up the trail and finds that Andrew Korwin is now Arthur Kershaw, prosperous co-owner of a high-tech firm on the fringe of the arms trade. Parker's good deed gets him nothing but trouble. Her Majesty's intelligence service would have been much happier if Mr. Kershaw had been left alone; Miss Ayres, with whom Parker has become smitten, is clearly not just a businesswoman; a gang of assassins has just missed executing Kershaw's business partner in Spain, where he was working a shady arms deal; a tough customer is on his way to the UK from East Germany to settle some WW II debts incurred by Uncle Andrew\Arthur; and Parker is very much in the way. Mostly satisfying. The clever characters, scenes of bureaucratic warfare, and the romantic setup are more attractive and of greater interest than the rather frantic plot.