Traitor's Blood
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An international fugitive is faced with a vexing choice: “A first-rate espionage thriller . . . nonstop action” (Publishers Weekly).
Lem Stanhope-Swift, the sixth Viscount Bessacarr, has been living in Venezuela, keeping his distance from the British authorities ever since an embezzlement charge landed him in a spot of bother back home. Over the years he’s been enjoying the tropical weather and an abundance of liquor and women. But he’s just learned that he has cancer, and desperately wants to see the daughter he long ago abandoned.
Landing on his home country’s soil under a false identity, he’s disappointed to discover that the secret service is there to greet him. They have a proposition: They’ll arrange the visit, as long as he first agrees to an assignment to kill another wanted man on the run—the fifth viscount, Lem’s own father . . .
“A perfect mixture of tension and mordant humor.” —Publishers Weekly
“Entertaining . . . easily keeps the reader’s attention through a series of twists and turns that prevent guessing the outcome until the very end.” —Library Journal
“Hill remains one of the finest mystery writers of our era.” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hill, author of the popular British series featuring detectives Dalziel and Pascoe, has written a first-rate espionage thriller. Lemuel Swift, sixth Viscount Bessacarr, living in Venezuela as a fugitive from British justice, is told he has terminal cancer. Desperate to see his only child, Swift fakes his own kidnapping and tries to slip back into England incognito. To his surprise, he is immediately arrested by British Intelligence, in the persons of Commander Hunnicut and his female assistant, Reilly. The British promise to let Swift contact his daughter if he does just one thing for them: namely, kill his father, a notorious traitor who fled to Russia years earlier. Swift half-heartedly agrees. However, things are not what they seem. He runs into double-cross on top of double-cross until it is hard to separate friend from foe from family member. Hill demonstrates his mastery by keeping a tight rein on a plot that, with its nonstop action, could have become chaotic. The narrative is a perfect mixture of tension and mordant humor, and ultimately all loose ends are tied up in a way that should satisfy the most demanding reader.
