Roman Nights (38 page)
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 | Moroccan Traffic The Chairman of Kingsley Conglomerates is conducting negotiations, which are both difficult and somewhat dubious, in Morocco. He is accompanied by executive secretary Wendy Helmann. However, there are soon distractions when unorthodox Rita Geddes appears on the scene. Wendy discovers that there is much more at stake than the supposed negotiations, and finds herself at the centre of kidnappings, murder, and industrial espionage. Explosions, a car chase across the High Atlas out of Marrakesh and much more follows. Of course, the prior arrival of portrait painter Johnson Johnson is in many ways fortuitous, but he has some ghosts of his own to lay. |
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 | Operation Nassau Dr. B. McRannoch is in the Bahamas with her father who has moved there from Scotland because of asthma. She is a savvy and tough young lady who shows much independence of mind and spirit. However, when Sir Bart Edgecombe, a British agent who has been poisoned with arsenic falls ill on his way back from New York, she becomes involved in a series of events beyond her wildest imagination. Drawn into an espionage plot where there are multiple suspects and characters, it is only the inevitable presence of Johnson Johnson that saves the day. As with all of the Johnson series, nothing is quite as straightforward as it at first seems, and there are many complicating factors to grip the reader as well as the added bonus of another exotic location. |
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 | Roman Nights Ruth Russell, an astronomer working at the Maurice Frazer Observatory, is enjoying herself in Rome – that is, until her lover, Charles Digham, a fashion photographer and writer of obituary verses, has his camera stolen. The thief ends up as a headless corpse in the zoo park tolleta. Johnson Johnson, enigmatic portrait painter, spy and sleuth, is in Rome to paint a portrait of the Pope and is therefore on hand to investigate in one of Dunnett’s usual thrilling and convoluted plots that grips the reader from cover to cover. There is something far more deadly at stake than just the secrets of a couture house … |
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 | Rum Affair This mystery is told from the point of view of the ‘Bird’; Tina Rossi, a famous coloratura soprano who arrives to sing at the Edinburgh Festival, only to find a murder victim in a cupboard, whilst at the same time her lover, top scientist Kenneth Homes, has gone missing. Saved from the long arm of the law by Johnson Johnson, a world renowned portrait painter and enigmatic solver of mysteries, Tina joins him on a yacht race to the Hebrides - there are connections anyway as Homes was conducting top secret research in the area. Here, though, there is yet more trouble and the mystery deepens as Johnson’s yacht ‘Dolly’ nears the island of Rum, where it turns into a race for life rather than prize money. This is the first title in the Johnson Johnson series and in common with the remainder involves an intricate plot and solution which is far from immediately obvious. |
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 | Split Code Joanna Emerson, a trained nursery nurse, is hired as a nanny, albeit reluctantly, to the infant heir of a cosmetics fortune. She then becomes caught up in a complex kidnap plot. She is also an expert in codes and her purpose is to gain an insight into the opposition plan? But how does kidnapping further anyone’s interests? Commencing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the story moves quickly through locations, as with many of Dunnett’s stories. On this occasion Joanna ends up on a crippled yacht off the coast of Yugoslavia. As always, both behind and aside from the plot and it’s inevitable conclusion is enigmatic portrait painter, yachtsman and former spy, Johnson Johnson. Bullets are flying, most of them in Joanna’s direction. Just how can this end? |
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 | Tropical Issue Rita Geddes is a dyslexic makeup artist whose appearance seems to change with the weather. She is called to Johnson Johnson’s apartment, which he has let to a friend who wishes to use his studio, to fix the makeup of the famous Natalie Sheridan. However, Johnson, who is seemingly recovering from an accident, which turns out to be a murder attempt, is also present - as is it seems a mysterious figure seen by security outside of the apartment. What follows is murder, mystery and mayhem, with Johnson and his yacht Dolly, as always, at the centre. The reader will not be involved in second guessing a simple plot, however, as it is as intricate as fast moving, and far from a straightforward ‘whodunit’. The journey through this gripping story also moves from London to Madeira and the West Indies with equal pace. |
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