Written by a Downing Street foreign policy adviser to no fewer than three prime ministers — Blair, Brown and Cameron — this story of a killing in the British Embassy in Paris oozes authenticity. 

 

Ambassador Ed Barnes is horrified when a charismatic human rights activist dies with her throat cut inside the Embassy itself. 

 

The French authorities want to call it suicide, but Barnes embarks on his own investigation into what he believes is murder — much to the annoyance of the female Foreign Secretary who happened to be a guest at the Embassy on the day of the killing. 

 

Barnes is summoned back to London, but takes matters into his own hands to track down the man he believes may be behind the killing, and who clearly wants to exact some form of revenge. 

 

Vivid and atmospheric, it rockets around the world with intoxicating verve. Not quite Frederick Forsyth perhaps, but hugely engaging nonetheless. 

 

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