Gavin Lyall: 11 books

'Terrific – when better novels of suspense are written, lead me to them' P. G. Wodehouse Making a threadbare living flying charter cargos of dubious legitimacy around the Mediterranean, Jack Clay's ambition of starting his own chartering company remains a distant dream. All this changes...

'You won't be able to put the book down' New York Times When a prototype, next generation battle tank goes missing in the Jordanian desert, ex-SAS Major Harry Maxim is sent in. Secretly loaned to the Jordanian army for desert evaluation tests, the MBT90 vanished in the confusion of an army...

'An absorbingly and well-written book' New York Times Major Harry Maxim, ex-SAS and special adviser to number 10 Downing Street, is about to get drawn into conflict on an international scale. An English corporal, a cabinet convulsion in East Germany, and a double murder in a small West...

'Lyall at his fleet and fearful best' Chicago Tribune When Martin Fenwick – rich, respected, loved – is murdered, his bodyguard James Card goes on the hunt for his killers. His only clue, a small package wrapped in plain brown paper, will send Card on a relentless manhunt across international...

'Cary is great with a gun and deadpan about danger' Spectator Bill Cary makes a precarious living flying aerial surveys over Lapland. When he's hired by a wealthy American hunter, Frederick Wells Homer, to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border, the job seems shady indeed,...

'Lean and literate suspense' Guardian It seemed like money for old rope. All Kemp had to do was arrange the smooth passage of a Cezanne across the border to Switzerland, and anything was preferable to London in January. But on awaking in a Zurich park with a bump the size of a burial...

'The vortex of Caribbean politics made even more turbulent by one of the most compelling of contemporary storytellers' New York Times Flying charter cargoes around the Caribbean wasn't quite the same as flying in Korea, but it was still a living, and Carr had built up a solid reputation over...

'Sprightly Maltese Falconesque skulduggery … full of reverses and betrayals' Kirkus Reviews Roy Case, ex-Royal Air Force turned cargo pilot, lands in Nicosia to discover that his employers have gone bankrupt. Stranded at a rapidly deteriorating hotel, and assaulted in the street, he realises...

'A first-class piece of work' New York Times Book Review Major Harry Maxim, formerly of the SAS, is as surprised as anyone when he is hired by 10 Downing Street to assist in matters of defence and security. When there is a suspicious suicide at the Ministry of Defence, and a hand grenade...

'A first-class piece of work' New York Times Book Review Major Harry Maxim, formerly of the SAS, is as surprised as anyone when he is hired by 10 Downing Street to assist in matters of defence and security. When there is a suspicious suicide at the Ministry of Defence, and a hand grenade...

'Stirring period piece set in the anxious months before the outbreak of the First World War' Sunday Times With the shadow of the First World War looming ever closer, Britain is quietly relieved when Turkish bandits hold to ransom engineers working on a railway that threatened its oil interests...