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Hey, Stan

Scare Story

London, Hodder & Stoughton. 268 pp. £16.99.

Frank Brennan is about to have a passionate few minutes with his own wife in the back-seat of their car, when they are interrupted by a convoy of army trucks. Frank follows them and sees soldiers in biological warfare suits blue-bagging dead cattle. Time was, when such a scene meant there were foreign spies about. These days, all the suspicion is rightly directed at one's own side.

Part of this mystery novel is the contrast between Frank, middle-aged investigative newspaper reporter, and his younger wife who does the same, but on TV. Some of the behind the scenes revelations about TV and press may put you off both except for entertainment. There is no doubt where the author's sympathies lie. And yet he is one of England's premier TV writers. News seem to have no absolute value. It's what people project into the news that counts. And that's what advisers and spokesmen are for, to control what we project. The people who have time to think and see through them, alas, are nice people without influence.

As usual, Frank does not know who he can trust. The Ministry of Defense seems to be in this, and so is Porton Down, and various government departments that have changed their names to appear more innocuous, but are not.

In a final hilarious scene Frank's gangster friends come to the aid of Queen and Country.

Mordant, funny, serious, credible (alas), enjoyable thriller.

Higgins, Jack

Flight of Eagles

New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons. 328 pp. US $24.95

Max and Harry Kelso, twins, were born in the United States. Mother was German father an American. Mother returns to Germany with one son to mix with the higher echelons of Nazi society. The other son stays in America. When war breaks out, the son in America joins the RAF as a volunteer. Both twins become air aces.

You know that the brothers will meet one day in mortal combat and yet when the moment comes, it is both natural and a surprise.

The baroness, mother of the German ace, is arrogant, petulant, selfish, not too intelligent and has to learn the hard way what Nazi Germany is like. She only realises what Germans are capable of when her sons are threatened. The German ace, of course, claims that he and his ilk just enjoyed flying and downing other pilots - all good clean fun. Presumably merely medieval knights jousting for the favours of nice Herr Hitler instead of a pretty maiden.

The authorities on both sides know that their aces are twins and a devious scheme is set into motion to use them to assassinate Eisenhower. British intelligence never (well, hardly ever) misses a trick, and the brothers are determined to save each other and their mother. Part of the story is how the Americans try to force the Yankee ace to leave the RAF and join the USAF. But he is one stubborn Yankee.

Higgins is a master story-teller. He takes you up in the air with the pilot and puts you in the cockpit as planes twist, turn and fire. He brings you down to earth or sea with pilot and plane. He shows you the emotions of men caught up in a conflict of loyalties. Just when you think you know everything and understood everything, on the very last page, Higgins tells you the most important detail of all and leaves you wondering, how they could ...but maybe that was why!

Jack Higgins is the best known pseudonym of Harry Patterson. He holds dual British Irish nationality, served in the Royal Horse Guards and now lives in the Channel Islands. Would-be authors should study the construction of the book regardless of the genre they pursue.

Holt, Hazel

Death of a Dean

London, Pan (Macmillan). 182 pp. £5.99.

Francis Beaumont, Dean of Culminster Cathedral is a handsome, imposing, charismatic and ambitious churchman. His brother David is a sweetheart. Civilised, warm, genuinely charming, a real Christian. But useless with money. He goes to rich brother Francis for help and is rebuffed. Hours later Francis is murdered. Someone has slipped something into his tea.

Apart from the police, the sleuth is Sheila Malory, a sort of modern Miss Marples (that is intended as a compliment). Even she is beginning to have doubts about her friend David. Could he have been desperate enough to murder his own brother (shades of Cain and Abel), who stood between him and the family inheritance? The trouble about that theory is that Dean Francis Beaumont tyrannised his wife (who still adored him and couldn't imagine life without him, says she), and a son and daughter he bullied, denigrated and wouldn't allow them to lead their own lives as they wished. His own son had fallen in love with father's mistress.

A traditional English cosy, a really good read and an ending that will warm the cockles of your heart. It wasn't any of the good guys that did it.

Hazel Holt is the late Barbara Pym's literary executor. She is married. She lives in Somerset. She has a cat. Her son is a writer. Can an author with such a biography write anything hard-nosed and violent!

Hudson, Maggie

Tell Me No Secrets

London, HarperCollins. 378 pp. £5.99.

South-east London gangs. One daughter takes after her father, the other yearns for respectability. What can be more respectable than marrying a policeman with promotion ahead of him? It just so happens that this upstanding policeman has a sister who yearns after a criminal on the run.

The gangsters' women discover that their men are lying, cheating and betraying them. How to stop this! They plan an outrageous crime. The daughter yearning for respectability is the meticulous planner of a successful operation. Is this another secret to be kept from the family? Will the ladies get away with it? What is their future, now that they have outperformed the men they love and who claim to love them?

How family secrets are kept is a compelling part of this book, which in its way is a textbook on how to carry out the most interesting crimes.

Adventure and families ostensibly criminous and ostensibly respectable.

Maggie Hudson is the pseudonym of Margaret Pemberton whose teenage daughter turned up at home with her new boyfriend, forty years her senior and a south London gangster, friend of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs.