Maestro

Description

Louis Passau is America's greatest living orchestral conductor, a legendary, world-acclaimed artist whose ninetieth birthday will be marked by a glittering celebratory concert at New York's Lincoln Center. But a double shadow hangs over the event: Passau has recently been accused of spying for Hitler and, worse, the British Secret Intelligence Service have now linked his name to KGB clandestine operations in the USA during the Cold War. The Maestro agrees to be interrogated, but only after the concert. British Intelligence call in Big Herbie Kruger to question the Maestro, and thanks to the once-famous agent-runner Passau survives an assassination attempt in his moment of glory. Still a target, he now insists on dealing only with Kruger, who desperately seeks a safe-house to conduct the debriefing. As he grapples with the elusive truth about the conductor - from the man's first memories of his Bavarian village, to his adventures as a young immigrant in New York, his experiences in Capone's Chicago and his ruthless rise to fame and fortune - Herbie Kruger finds himself ensnared in the Maestro's dangerous secrets and deceits.

Before coming an author of fiction in he early 1960's John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including a series of highly acclaimed comic novels featuring a cowardly secret agent called Boysie Oakes. He was also invited by Ian Fleming's literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles. Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy. Moriarty was published in the UK by Quercus and in the US by Harcourt in November 2008.

'Packed with stunning surprises ...fiction on a soaring scale by a technician of the craft' Mail on Sunday