This is my style of crime story: an intelligent tale, based - however loosely - on reality, or possibility and it moves at a pace that keeps the reader hooked from first to last page.

Our hero, Eric Ward, is a lawyer. Not a big shot, a small time Tyneside lawyer. He represents small low life but gets entangled with the death of Colonel Delamere and the theft of a statuette, reputedly part of a stolen hoard taken by Howard Carter from the tome of King Tut' (This is the bit that is based upon truth).

Eric Ward is not your average sleuth in that he does not solve the case, rather he blunders through and is the tool for us to be lead to a conclusion: having said that, he is not some dunce, a John (or James!) Watson, always too slow to solve the clues that a Holmes figure has effortlessly understood.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable read and I am pleased to note that Roy Lewis has penned a number of crime stories. I look forward to finding more examples soon. ( )