Lionel Davidson's debut thriller was a massive success on first publication in 1960. The New Yorker said it was 'so enriched with style, wit, and a sense of serious comedy that it all but transcends its kind.' Newsweek thought it 'downright superb', and it won the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association.
Young Nicholas Whistler, dissolute and disillusioned, lives a life of monotony in London. Caught up in a petty money-lenders' dispute, he is sent to Prague to discharge the debt by carrying out a simple assignment. Instead he is dragged deep into the dangerous world of Cold War espionage and the battle for atomic supremacy. Trapped between the secret police and the amorous clutches of the mysterious Vlasta, Nicholas realises he is now a spy, whether he likes it or not.
- ISBN10 057124288X
- ISBN13 9780571242887
- Publish Date 29 May 2008 (first published 26 February 1970)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 16 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 240
- Language English