Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76721 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Synopsis
He should never have opened the envelope ...Adam Scott listens to the reading of his father's will, aware that the results can only be pitiful. The Colonel, after all, had nothing to leave - except a letter he had never opened himself, a letter Adam fears can only bring further disgrace to the family name. Against his mother's wishes, Adam opens the letter, and immediately realises his life can never be the same again. The contents leave him with no choice but to follow a course his father would have described as a matter of honour. "Probably the greatest storyteller of our age" - Mail On Sunday".

Customer Reviews

Vintage Archer that hasn't withstood the test of time
The Soviet authorities have come to realise that a famous painting is only a copy, and that the original probably holds a document of the utmost importance to them.

At the same time, Adam Scott inherits a pitiful sum of money and a sealed letter from his father.

Soon the KGB and Adam hunt each other through Europe, wanting to possess the original painting and its contents. The KGB is ruthless from the start; Adam becomes ruthless as the KGB hurts him and those near and dear to him. Despite Adam's military background and MC, his ruthlessness is quite out of character with how he is portrayed initially and outside the action scenes.

While the general plot is intriguing (what if?) the characters are on the whole quite unbelievable, which makes the book too much of a boy's book - all action and no depth. Adam wastes little feeling on his dead girlfriend, and has no qualms about risking the lives of innocent bystanders. The Russians are quite the standard stereotype of KGB super-agents, near James Bond standard, but with no morals nor ideals.