Piccolo: A Novel - Hardcover

Baddock, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802712010 ISBN 13: 9780802712011

Publisher: Walker & Co, 1992

Sent to investigate the mysterious deaths of several Ministry of Defense computer experts, Police Inspector Steven Redmond soon learns that he is expected to "whitewash" the investigation--something he will not do

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Here, in Baddock's latest (Emerald, etc.), a yuppie police detective and pretty police sergeant roll up their sleeves to do battle with an evil multinational conglomerate--one that's trying to foist shoddy techno-goods on a too-trusting United Kingdom. Young, handsome, university educated, sadly divorced, BMW- driving, second-generation policeman and cleaned-up Yorkshireman Steven Redmond is shaken from his post-Thatcherian, career-oriented smugness by his latest assignment--a lukewarm directive to see whether there's any pattern to a recent string of accidents and suicides. Indeed there is. The departed were all techno-weenies who had had something to do with a supersecret military project that Steven isn't supposed to look at too closely. In fact, Steven isn't supposed to look at anything too closely. He has been selected for the job because of his shallow careerism. But our Steven is made of better stuff than his slick lifestyle would suggest, and with the assistance of his attractive, computer canny Detective Sergeant Gail Harper, he quickly uncovers multinational corporate foul play on the grandest of scales and involving the highest levels of government. Even when he's sent to the States to get him out of the way, Steven sticks to the job. Much blood flows. Many techies die. Gratuitously violent yet curiously dull--a pale imitation of an early-Sixties thriller. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A "new kind of treason" is afoot in England, and Baddock ( The Faust Conspiracy ) plays it out with his customary power and tension. The brass at Special Branch ask agent Steven Redmond to determine if any pattern links the recent deaths of computer scientists at the Ministry of Defense, but they also make it clear that they want an indeterminate report. While Redmond finds nothing tangible, his ambitious partner taps into a top-secret database and learns that most of the victims had been involved in a mysterious project known as Piccolo. When other Piccolo scientists end up dead, Redmond dives into the case, only to be ordered off by the head of MI5. Soon Redmond is shunted off to the States, where he gathers more information about Piccolo, this time implicating a multinational corporation and an agent of the Ministry of Defense. The plot twists and turns, leaving in its wake an astonishing trail of death. Vivid characters and excellent pacing intensify the punch in this knockout thriller.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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