The Lizard in the Cup

Simulated war games morph into the real thing when a crime wave hits a Greek island in this fast-paced mystery by CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson

The West Indies island of Hog’s Cay is soon to open for tourism, but the money behind the deal comes from the Mafia, which is ready to turn the island into the next Vegas. And the politicos in charge have given Greek tycoon Thanassi Thanatos the contract. That’s where James Pibble comes in.

The former Scotland Yard superintendent has come to Thanatos’s hideaway on the Ionian island of Hyos to protect the Greek tycoon from the Mob, which doesn’t like anyone muscling in on its territory. Rumor has it the crooks are eyeing Hyos for their booming drug-smuggling trade. Throw in British intelligence and a clandestine American operation, and you’ve got an international free-for-all.

The mystery deepens when Pibble uncovers a monastery led by Fathers Polydore and Chrysostom, who may be the richest men on the island. And why is an English artist named Nancy living in a primitive hut? The answers may lie in a myth about a lizard called the samimithi, a harbinger of violent death.

With superstition and distrust running rampant, Pibble races to stop a conspiracy set in motion by an obsessive love with the power to kill.

Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.
 
The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: The Glass-Sided Ants Nest (1968) and The Old English Peepshow (1969). Dickinson was shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice.
 
Dickinson served as chairman of the Society of Authors and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature. Peter Dickinson died on December 16, 2015, at the age of eighty-eight.