This is book 2 of the "David Audley" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

An early Audley book. I haven't dipped into these in years, time to look at them again. Besides, I'm trying to get Marissa to read them, I'd better be current. I've also got a general page on Anthony Price.

Allan Jenkins is such a babe-in-the-woods. He works on debugging and debombing cars, but doesn't realize that his knowledge that's going to lead to promotion might be dangerous. I think one thing Hugh Roskill is realizing is that the fact that he's a less good man than Harry, and probably Alan too, is a big part of what makes him more suitable for the department he works in.

It's a coolly triumphant book. Just this once, the good guys in Egypt and Israel and the UK have managed to work together to accomplish something good, without stabbing each other in the back (well, individual good guys in each case). And none of them are under the illusion that it will miraculously fix everything, or anything insane like that, either. In fact, it's actually the other side that has insane messianic ideas. Even Roskill's getting shot at the end is good -- it gets him out of flying with plausible deniability.

I've been thinking about entry points into this series for a friend. It's a particularly dificult problem because the internal chronology doesn't match the order written. This is one of the possibilities that both Pamela and I hit on. We also considered Other Paths to Glory (#3) and Soldier No More. Having read this one, I'm less inclined to think it's a good starting point. Part of its charm is the contrast of Hugh Roskill's viewpoint, and that only works if you've already had the Audley view, and met a few of the characters. At the moment I'm leaning towards publication order for a first trip through, (that being The Labyrinth Makers, The Alamut Ambush (#2), Colonel Butlers Wolf, and October Men before finally reaching Other Paths to Glory). I mean, can one really appreciate Soldier No More if you meet it early? And I hope all these reference calls aren't going to drive the server nuts every time somebody loads this page!