A former Customs and Police Officer, Andrew Hill’s first book in a crime series set in the New Forest, where he lived for 30 years, will be published in Spring 2022. An avid reader across the crime genre and regular at crime writing festivals, he now lives in West Sussex and works in property.
MI6 operative Harry Mackintosh’s efforts to recover a valuable source with his French counterpart, goes horribly wrong. He loses his lover, Elodie, in a shootout with the Stasi and its most feared counter-intelligence operative, Karl-Heinz Sommer.
Whilst he wants revenge, he wants none of the usual MI6 agents in on his return mission and instead is given bank-robber, Jimmy Walker. Jimmy is a master at cracking safes but is also a man who treads his own path and has had some previous involvement with Irish Nationalism.
Mackintosh is certain that his previous mission was betrayed from within and uses a KGB double agent, Oksana Baranova, to try and establish who betrayed them and also to get access to the East and intelligence on Sommer to destroy him.
When it’s revealed that Sommer has a stash of valuables in a vault in the basement of his offices, Walker’s larcenous instincts are brought to the fore. Will he help Harry get the job done, or will the ‘goodies’ in the vault be too much of a temptation?
Pacey and with a real sense of an East Germany (pre-the Wall coming down); this story has all the elements that you’d look for in a spy thriller. Revenge, old enmities, a not completely trustworthy ally and a double agent who may (or may not) double-cross. There is a reveal that I felt could have been delayed until later, but I’m being a little curmudgeonly if I was to make that a big issue.
I hope there is more to come from Harry and Jimmy.
