Thin Ice

It was a simple errand. Collect a package. Save the world.

‘Part James Bond, part Philip Marlowe, and all hero’—Jeffrey Deaver

It was a simple job, they said: just collect a package in Vienna. But when Bill Kemp’s contact washes up dead on the frozen banks of the Danube, where the Iron Curtain falls across the map of Europe, he’s thrown into the heart of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens to destabilise the continent. As winter closes in and Kemp faces a treacherous expedition across the Alps to Switzerland, his introduction to the dark world of espionage proves as deadly as the bleak, beautiful mountains.

This original tale of spies, danger and death in Cold War Austria features investigator Bill Kemp, who first appeared in Desmond Bagley’s Domino Island and its enthralling sequel Outback, and affirms Steel Dagger nominee Michael Davies as a rising star in the crime/thriller genre.

Reviews

Praise for the previous books in this series:

‘What a wonderful book! And a protagonist for all time, Bill Kemp – part James Bond, part Philip Marlowe, and all hero. A brilliant and timeless novel.’
JEFFERY DEAVER

‘Exotic, wild and dangerous – and Land Rovers, naturally.’
MIKE RIPLEY

‘Faithful to Desmond Bagley.’
THE TIMES

About the author

Michael Davies began his career as a newspaper journalist and editor and a professional theatre critic. Since moving into fiction, his writing has appeared on stage, screen, radio, the printed page and online. His debut play won a national competition, and subsequent work includes Tess – The Musical, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A lifelong Desmond Bagley fan, he completed for publication Bagley’s ‘lost’ manuscript, Domino Island, nearly forty years after the author’s death, followed by his own original novel, Outback, in 2023.