The Day The Thames Caught Fire (LIN) - Softcover

Chambers, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0708972705 ISBN 13: 9780708972700

Publisher: Linford Mystery, 1992

Synopsis

From a former chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. Philip Baxter, an unemployed mercenary, is approached by a stranger and offered a job that will bring him a quarter of a million pounds for less than a day's work. His mission involves the theft of ten million pounds in gold bullion from a riverside warehouse. The method is easy - he is to cause a distraction by setting fire to a barge. Of his reward, Baxter is less certain. Does anyone intend to pay him or is he being double-crossed?

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

The former president of the British Crime Writers Association, and author of The Hunting of Mr. Gloves , here offers an overly ambitious and disappointing novel with a large cast that includes British spies, politicians, merchant seamen, beautiful women and a Mafia hit man. In Majorca, an enigmatic stranger hires unemployed mercenary Major Philip Baxter, nicknamed the Bad Major, to lead a daring robbery. The scheme: to steal 10 million in gold bullion from a well-guarded, well-fortified building in central London in broad daylight. Predictably, the elaborate planning and execution of the crime allows ample time for some of the players to double-cross one another. Chambers's unfocused narrative describes the role and character of each player, no matter how minor, failing to concentrate on the major ones. Cliched dialogue and a flat prose style don't help matters, nor do the irritating and abrupt shifts in the point of view, which occur even in mid-paragraph.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Linford Mystery
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0708972705
• ISBN 13: 9780708972700
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576