The Seductive Scent of Empire

When Ruby Parker Head of MI7s Red Department is hospitalised by a burglar all is not as it seems. Her removal coincides with a series of catastrophes for British spies in hostile territories abroad and some very shifty behaviour by the new Acting Head of Red Department Patrick Atherton. Atherton dislikes Reds established hierarchy which includes all its officers without exception and possibly John Mordred in particular. But then things take a turn for the strange. Atherton has an apparent breakdown; he gets up from his desk leaves Thames House and apparently goes off radar. Important men and women across London start dying in violent circumstances. It simultaneously transpires that the mysterious Black Department is taking a close interest in all this. And not quite from its usual distance.Suddenly John Mordred himself becomes the focus of intensely hostile scrutiny. And when he too goes off radar its because he no longer has a choice. For a while nothing seems to make sense. Then shockingly it does.