Simon Shard series by Philip McCutchan (#1-2,4-5)
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Overview: Philip McCutchan (1920-1996) grew up in the naval atmosphere of Portsmouth Dockyard and developed a lifetime’s interest in the sea. Military history was an early interest resulting in several fiction books, from amongst his large output, about the British Army and its campaigns, especially in the last 150 years.
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
1. Call for Simon Shard
Out in the open, they find a body…
Three men, old comrades of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, Cornwall’s own regiment, now merged anonymously, unterritorially, into The Light Infantry, made their way across open country.
From the former regimental depot at Bodmin the old soldiers had brought a Remembrance Day wreath, worked around the badge of the DCLI. One of them, stopping to take a breath, gave a short laugh, staring upward as they approached the real rock climb.
Thinking of marches on patrol, back in the thirties, along the rock-strewn, bandit-ridden Khyber Pass, or sometimes sweating troop-trains hauling a brigade below the heaven-high forts of Jamrud and Ali Masjid and Landi Khotal.
There was something military, something fortress-like, about Rough Tor right enough — something to make old soldiers think a lot about their past. Not just the crows, either…
The three men find the body of a young woman lying face down and dead upon the moor, crows all about her. The young woman was Yvette Casabon from Cherbourg, according to the letters found on her body. They call in Simon Shard, who doesn’t much care for the case since hard drugs — thousands of pounds worth of heroin along with large amounts of money to be precise — had been found on the body.
Shard had a deep hatred for drugs. However, he had a deeper hatred for corruption… And a number had been found on the body, too, the number of another policeman known to Shard: Hedge. Hedge knew that Chief Super Intendent Hesseltine was no friend; there had been altercations in the past.
Hesseltine, naturally, would never step outside the law, the law was his job and his life and he was an honest and honourable man, no doubt of that.
If Hesseltine really thought the worst — then things might very well become exceedingly awkward: for a number of people knew that Hedge’s wife spent a good deal of time away from home, and that Hedge was a full-blooded man.
Simon Shard didn’t like Hedge either, didn’t like his type. However because Hedge, taking an interest in him years ago, had helped him in his career, Shard was duly grateful and thus couldn’t go by his assumptions. What was Yvette Casabon’s role in all of this? How did she end up with Hedge’s number? A notoriously promiscuous man. And how far does this tale of corruption go? Only Simon Shard can find out…
2. A Very Big Bang
The London underground system was a hive of activity at all times. So, when Tom Casey informs Superintendent Simon Shard that four men are planning on blowing up large sections of the underground, Shard has ten days to foil the attempt.
Should he ask the Prime Minister to shut down the entire underground. Would this cause mass panic?
Shard needed more information, but Casey had an assignation in York. It was an important assignation with a very beautiful young woman. This was to be his undoing. Any further information Casey had would go with him into the River Thames. There was going to be a very big bang…
As Casey never made it to his debriefing appointment with Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Shard, Shard had to pick up the pitifully slender thread of clues himself. Casey’s trail took him from London to Ireland, then to parts of York not normally shown to the tourists, over the Pennines and, inevitably, back to London and into the Underground system where a particularly lethal device waited to bring about the point of no return for London’s commuting millions.
With the London underground running as normal and with the potential date approaching fast, Shard needs to think … and think fast. Where would they plant the explosives? If he could figure this out, he just might be able to foil their plans.
4. The Eros Affair
An anonymous call from a coin-box results in the finding of a long-buried skeleton… along with a four-letter code.
Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Shard flies to the North to investigate the finding and the code. The Security Service are more interested than normal following the tip-off and the code used.
Despite barking orders down the phone line, Hedge makes his way to the annual dinner of the Royal Agricultural Charities Institution at the Eros Hotel, where the Commissioner will be.
Home for dinner for once, Shard receives a phone call that sends his investigation into chaos. The Eros Hotel has been hijacked, with Hedge, his wife and the Commissioner inside. With gunmen holding people hostage inside the Psyche’s suite, a banqueting suite.
The hostages include a number of VIP guests, including minor government ministers and trade union leaders. But Hedge is their main concern – the shadowy screen between the Foreign Office’s Head of Security and the rest of the world, the bland, egregious thorn in Shard’s flesh who happens to be his departmental boss.
As the gunmen’s demands emerge, so does the connection with the un-earthed skeleton. Hedge being held hostage was no coincidence. He becomes the bargaining power for the hijackers…
And so shard had little choice but to make his way to East Berlin to try to extricate Her Majesty’s Security Service from a particularly tricky situation.
5. Blackmail North
Hedge has another assignment for Detective Inspector Simon Shard…
Mackenzie Edinburgh Castle Mackintosh from Freetown in Sierra Leone, an oil geologist and a valuable one, has been released from a Libyan prison and is back in the UK, hoping to reunite with his Scottish wife.
Mackintosh’s freedom is under question. The knowledge he possesses could wreck the British oil industry if it falls into the wrong hands… and there is also the question of where his loyalties lie. Hedge, from the Foreign Security Office thinks Shard needs to make contact with Mackintosh … but Shard isn’t the only one assigned to this task.
As the investigation progresses, Shard realises that the men he is facing could be played against one another, but only if played right. But, from early on, it is clear that he is facing people who will go to whatever lengths to carry out their plans.
Thrown off track a number of times, Shard, finally, in the depths of The Hangman and under the guidance of Aurora Lindeman, is ready to end this once and for all … except, he didn’t quite bargain for Hedge’s presence … a presence that would do nothing more than wind Shard up and complicate things further…
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5. Blackmail North
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