CHINA GOLD

Crooked colonial cops snatch a fortune in Hong Kong gold before the Japanese can get their hands on it—in the latest from WW II thriller specialist Tarrant (The Clauberg Trigger, 1979, etc.). Detective Chief Inspector George Ramsay is the bent copper who masterminds the cheeky plan to divert the Bank of Hong Kong and Shanghai's entire cache of bullion somewhere between the bank's vault and the freighter waiting to take the gold to Australia, where it will be safe from the Japanese, who are just over the line in mainland China. Ramsay's not planning to pocket the stuff, of course. Too bulky. He's sold the gold in advance to a Chinese crimelord who pays in diamonds. Standing between Chief Ramsay and his early retirement are Ramsay's boss, straight-arrow Assistant Commissioner Kellerman; and David Hammond, handsome young head of security for the bank. Sneaking around the sidelines is Frank Waldron, an American lawyer on the lam from both the Canadian military police and a murderous cabal of America Firsters back in the Western Hemisphere. There are also a couple of nice-looking ladies to spice things up—Hammond's wife Jill, whom Ramsay kidnaps to distract her husband, and Katherine Goddard, a gutsy nurse who takes a fancy to the nervous Yank. Ramsay looks like he's going to pull off the heist, but he hasn't reckoned with the astonishing deductive skills of Mr. Hammond. Slick period thriller.