Mikali was a concert pianist, internationally famous, feted and fawned on wherever he went. He was irresistible to women, inspiring passion in the most frigid, yet himself always cold and withdrawn. He was also the most dangerous man in Europe, a ruthless assassin who killed not for principle, not for revenge, but for the excitement and satisfaction he found in his bloody work.

Asa Morgan was a killer too, an original soldier monk, who started his career at Arnhem and perfected his techniques in Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Oman and the dungeons of Communist China. Now he was a colonel in Northern Ireland, waging his war with the same controlled saveagery as marked all his actions.

And then Mikali, fleeing from the police after the murder of a prominent Zionist, ran over and killed a young girl on a bicyle in a tunnel under the railway near Paddington Station. The girl was Asa Morgan's daughter.

When an irresistable force meets an immovable object, trouble usually ensures. When Mikali met Asa Morgan there could only be one solution. Death.

Jack Higgins is already renowned as one of the world's great story tellers. This is his finest, most sensational novel yet.