Jack Higgins · 1980 · thriller

Jack Higgins's 1980 thriller. John Mikali is a celebrated concert pianist whose name opens every door and whose luggage is never searched - which is what makes him the best contract assassin in Europe. He makes one professional error, killing a child on a country road in England, and her father is a colonel who has nothing left to lose.

1. 1
   Hydra

   On Hydra, forty sea miles south of Athens, the Mikalis have been shipowners since the War of Independence - and the boy raised between the island and America has perfect pitch and no conscience whatever.

2. 2
   Athens

   Athens under the Colonels gives him his first killing and his politics, and afterwards a career: a pianist who tours constantly, is welcome everywhere, and is run by a French lawyer who supplies the names.

3. 3
   Paris

   From Paris the contracts come and the money goes, and the double life holds perfectly for years - a concert on the Thursday, a shooting on the Friday, and an alibi that a hundred people in evening dress will swear to.

4. 4
   London

   In England a job goes wrong and a girl is killed by accident - and her father, Colonel Asa Morgan of Arnhem and Ulster, stops being a soldier and becomes something the intelligence services cannot call off.