MISSING FROM THE RECORD

A posh, country mum abandons the farm and family to try to tidy up some nasty business left undone in the disastrous last days of Saigon--and her husband follows a trail of bodies to track her down. From the author of Troika, A Falcon for the Hawks, A Conflict of Interests, etc. It's a cold homecoming for Royal Army Major Tom Cartwright. After a grueling week in the city, he finds the family farm empty and a cryptic good-bye note from his rich wife Sarah. Cartwright was aware that some of the bloom had gone off the marriage, but he is in no way prepared for this surprise ending. And he doesn't believe it. Before she donned the wellies and headscarf and took up pony management, Sarah Cartwright was a career woman, an intelligence operative who had been on the fast track until she got stuck with the blame for a catastrophic and very expensive screw-up while closing down the Royal Saigon spying office. Sarah's lips have been sealed by the Official Secrets Act, but Tom suspects that some very messy unfinished business and her old spook associates have returned to hunt Sarah, and he tries to track her down before she falls victim to whoever crammed their au pair girl into an industrial trash compactor. With only his mother-in-law as an ally and no cash to speak of in the bank account, Cartwright flies American Express off to the Orient, usually staying one step ahead of the police and one step behind Sarah--who, along with her old associate, is trying to reach a man left for dead in Vietnam 20 years before. Agreeably complicated thriller.