Partridge Kite

A powerful blast blows away a bank wall and five innocent people - and 4,250,000 in gold bars disappear.A coolly-plotted assassination seems accidental, as a militant left-wing labor leader, on the eve of a paralyzing national strike, takes a fatal fall down the world s longest escalator.Off the Yorkshire coast, an oil rig the size of a football field is firebombed and totally destroyed.The UK suffers blindly under a series of tragedies with no visible link.Then, a defector appears at Cannon Row police station and spells out the threat from the sinister group CORDON a right-wing takeover of Great Britain is imminent. Only 12 days remain.The Prime Minister orders his intelligence chief to recruit a new agent. The assignment: stop CORDON, no one can be trusted. CORDON has penetrated every level.From its top secret files, the Special State operations department pulls a dossier on Tom McCullin. A case-hardened former Belfast sniper, veteran of many dirty campaigns, McCullin is a hard-drinking recluse with a talent for destruction.As he is led and misled to the truth by his own government, a small secret army is ready on the South Downs; vehicles stand poised to deal death to England s ghettoes with lethal gas; and fascist rallies pack London meeting halls as CORDON prepares for a ruthless coup d etat.As the days tick off, McCullin races toward the explosive climax in The Partridge Kite as England faces its greatest crisis, one that could very well be taking place right now.