On a beautiful summer evening in the quiet town of Marlow, a young woman is walking home from church. She passes a man who is looking at the engine of his car. He turns round, smiles at her . . . and throws acid into her face. Then her father, the scientist George Ashton, disappears. And her sister, Penny, discovers that her husband-to-be, Malcolm, is a government agent. Why has Ashton disappeared, and why is Malcolm told to hunt for him? Who is George Ashton, anyway? And who is the enemy?
Financial consultant, Malcolm Jaggard, begins a desperate investigation when flourishing industrialist and former Russian scientist, George Ashton, the father of Jaggard's fiancie, mysteriously disappears following a vicious acid attack on his daughter. Ashton is traced from his home in Buckinghamshire to the wintry forests of Sweden, in a compelling tale about rivalries between intelligence groups and shocking experiments in genetic engineering.
The brilliant new Spenser novel from the beloved New York Times-bestselling author Robert B. Parker. Called upon by The Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, Spenser accepts his latest case: to provide protection during a ransom exchange-money for a stolen painting.
The case becomes personal when Spenser fails to protect his client and the valuable painting remains stolen. Convinced that Ashton Prince played a bigger role than just ransom delivery boy, Spenser enters into a daring game of cat-and-mouse with the thieves. But this is a game he might not come out of alive...
