Blood Money [Hardcover]

Clive Egleton (Author), Egleton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

The sixth Peter Ashton novel. Ashton's wife discovers some butchered bodies at a Yorkshire safe-house, the first act in a story where crime, fanaticism or politics all lead to violent death. Peter then begins to uncover a lethal plot which could destabilize the economy of the western world.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The latest in Egleton's Peter Ashton series (A Lethal Involvement, etc.) about hugger-mugger in and around Britain's SIS is rich in character and energetically plotted, quick-cutting back and forth between England, Russia, Finland and America. In the jolting beginning, a British Intelligence safe house is blown in a big way: three agents are slaughtered and one disappears?along with a Cuban-American informant. Ashton's wife, Harriet, finds the bodies and is briefly a suspect, as are many others: Muslim extremists, Moscow Mafiozniki, Cuban drug dealers and a few plain nasty crooks. Readers will recognize some old favorites: the SIS chief right out of P.G. Wodehouse; Peter's steely ex-lover, determined to become the first female head of SIS; Peter's past and current nemesis, a brutal ex-KGB general; the stuffy Admin mandarin known as "the officer in charge of paperclips." Sometimes the intramural maneuvering is as much fun as the outside action. Egleton's dry powers of observation are as effective in describing the Director General's posh office as evoking a hole-in-the-wall beauty parlor. The plotting feels like a combination of John le Carre and Elmore Leonard: a bit over the top, maybe, but compulsive, propulsive reading nonetheless.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Rogue SIS agent Peter Ashton becomes involved in a case that takes him from a multiple murder at a Yorkshire safe house to a dangerous confrontation in Moscow with his old nemesis, Russian agent Pavel Trilisser, and, finally, to northern Virginia and a head-to-head clash with a crazed perpetrator who's part of a plot to destroy the world economy. The multiple murder sets off a secret manhunt for an SIS informer known only as Inigo, who is linked to $5 million in missing diamonds. Ashton uncovers tenuous leads to Cuban thugs, Islamic radicals, the CIA, a gang of counterfeiters, and the Russian KGB, but it takes his signature disregard of the rules of espionage to piece it all together. Egleton is one of the few true masters of espionage left working the old turf, and his latest is one of his best. Emily Melton

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312185405
• ISBN-13: 978-0312185404
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,159,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For Le Carre Lovers?, February 19, 2005

By 

Timothy Blankenhorn (Villanova, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blood Money (Charnwood Library) (Hardcover)

I noted that Egleton's books came up in the "Readers Also Bought" category for John Le Carre's novels on Amazon, so I took a try. I was pleased, and I will keep reading Egleton.

Some points of comparison:
1) Egleton's plotting and complexity of character seem no match for Le Carre. But you can't hold that against him.
2) That said, the characters are credible and interesting. Peter Ashton, the main guy in this book, is human enough, with a wife and mortgage, with fears and pet peeves. He doesn't find himself suddenly in bed with lustful Soviet spies, for which I am grateful.
3) The politics of the English system seem right out of Le Carre, with budget cuts, intrusive bureaucrats, and endless departmental squabbles.
4) Finally, I like the dry absurd humor in the book, as when an ambassador hands him sequentially numbered bills to hand to a spy or when a random person springs an ambush and beats a hasty retreat. Just like life.