STEALTH

The connubial crime fighters Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley find themselves yet again in hot water.

Patrick is a former MI5 officer who now works for the Serious Organized Crime Agency, with Ingrid as his part-time assistant. Ingrid’s career as a crime novelist gives her the cover to attend a writer’s festival in Cannes so that she can check out Clement Hamlyn, a foulmouthed giant of an author with a dodgy background and a serious drinking problem who’s been meeting with wanted criminals. Back in England, the couple investigates the death of an elderly lady who’s written to the police about her neighbor, Hamlyn’s friend Hereward Trent, whom she suspects of dirty dealings. The police and SOCA have accorded her theories a lot more respect since finding her strangled at the bottom of her staircase. It soon becomes apparent that Hamlyn and Trent are involved with a dangerous group of gangsters likely to be involved in drug and arms peddling and perhaps murder as well. The stakes are raised when Hamlyn catches Ingrid snooping and beats her. Upon arriving on the scene, Patrick is captured as well, and they’re both thrown out of a speeding van on the M40. Feeling lucky to escape with their lives, they’re even more determined to find out who’s running the dangerous crime ring.

Duffy (Rat Poison, 2012, etc.) once more spices her police procedural with Bond-like thrills, this time adding a closer look into the angst-ridden mind of Patrick, who has to kill more often than he’d like.