From Publishers Weekly
Sprung from a French prison in June 1940, British con man William Quinton reluctantly agrees to transport platinum and rare gold coins for the Banque de France from Paris to Lisbon in his specially built Bentley. Jean Paul Schlesser, bank director, and Max Boni, of the Paris police, provide false passports, money, and gasoline to ease Quinton's passage over roads choked with refugees fleeing the German advance. But Schlesser and Boni are Nazi collaborators; double-cross follows upon double-cross, not the least dismaying those perpetrated by Marie Antoinette de Bergemont, Quinton's lover and fellow passenger. In his third novel, British author Kartun (Beaver to Fox, Flittermouse) pays detailed attention to the Bentley, a cross between James Bond's armored convertible in Goldfinger and the Joad's overburdened flivver in The Grapes of Wrath. This spy chase proceeds at less than breakneck pace, yet for all that it is a satisfying one in which the gold finances de Gaulle, Marie Antoinette discovers she can behave honorably, Schlesser and Boni get their just deserts and, happily, so does the Bentley. December 26
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In the midst of the fall of France, Bill Quinton is informed he may leave the country if he allows the Bank of France to conceal a fortune in bullion within his 1937 Bentley. The treasure is to finance French resistance abroad, and Quinton must evade not only the Germans but French officials who intend to collaborate with their conquerors. The result is an ingenious obstacle course of violent intrigue as Quinton wends his way across France to Lisbon. Then in a Portugal balanced precariously between the belligerents Quinton attains his final victory and suffers a devastating loss. A meticulously crafted novel that holds fact and might-have-been in close embrace, this is almost cinematic in its pacing. J.K. Sweeney, History Dept., South Dakota State Univ., Brookings
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
