Green River High - Duncan Kyle ****

Having been a fan of Alistair Maclean for many years it is a natural progression to try other authors in a similar field. Duncan Kyle appears to have been almost forgotten in recent years and that is a real shame as many of his books are as good today as when they were first written. Green River High isn’t one of his best stories, but it is still worth discovering.

An ex soldier, now bank clerk (George Tunnicliffe) foils a robbery where he works. His name becomes plastered across the press and as a result he receives communication from two individuals who knew his father a number of years previous. It seems that his now deceased father had rather a colourful life and was involved in the disappearance of thousands of rubies during World War 2. The only problem now is that there is only person alive who knows the area well enough to try and locate the crash site, and she is an aging ex mercenary who strikes a hard bargain for the sake of the church.

Anyone who likes a book to have a fair piece of action, double crossing and adventure in faraway lands then give this a try. Many of these novels have dated over the years, but Kyle still seems relatively fresh. I particularly like the way in which he describes his characters, and the trek across the English countryside could well have been taken from a Buchan novel.

Not quite a 5* read, but a very decent 4* ( )