The Precipice

Britain's best secret agents Tweed, Paula Grey and international foreign correspondent Bob Newman are back once again. In this 1996 thriller, they are on the trail of billionnaire Leopold Brazil, a communications tycoon. Tweed suspects he has a major world-threatening plan after seeing photographs of a rogue satellite being launched from French Guiana on the Ariane rocket delivery system. Brazil, with a base in Switzerland and a residence in Dorset, England, hides behind heavies and devious lawyers alike. Tweed's trail takes him and his team to Dorset, Geneva, Zurich and also the Swiss Valais canton. Paula Grey is almost kidnapped, and battle erupts on a mountainside when Brazil's plan to disable global communications and bring back Russia as a leading world power gets under way. Can Tweed and co. stop Brazil. You will surely guess the ending . . . or will you? Add to the plot a mystery assassin called the Motorman and Eve Warner, a disgruntled accomplice of Brazil's who nobody can trust and you have a surefire Forbes classic. One of his best of his later novels.