The Twisted Wire by Richard Falkirk

The 1970s Middle East conflict is the setting for this high-octane thriller by the author of The Chill Factor.

A crossed telephone wire causes a call from the President of the United States to his Ambassador in London to be overheard by geologist Tom Bartlett. Tom, preoccupied with thoughts of the conference he is to attend in Israel, puts the incident from his mind, unaware that he might not have been the only person listening in...

He has not been in Tel Aviv a day, however, before the first attempt is made on his life. As Arab, Israeli, Russian and American agents begin to converge on him, it's clear that someone wants Tom's briefcase - and will stop at nothing to obtain it.

The Twisted Wire, first published in 1971, is set at the height of the Middle East conflict, combining politics, espionage and murder into a compelling fast-moving adventure.

Richard Falkirk was a pseudonym of Derek Lambert, who was born in 1929. He served in the RAF for two and a half years and then worked as a journalist for local newspapers, becoming a foreign correspondent on the Daily Mirror and then the Daily Express, travelling the world to dangerous locations that later inspired his books. His first novel, Angels in the Snow (1969), was based on first-hand knowledge from a year's assignment to Moscow and entailed him smuggling the manuscript out of the country in a wheelchair. From journeying up the Himalayas in a jeep to being shot at in Israel, his experiences informed his authentic tales of espionage and adventure that helped turn him into a bestselling author of more than 30 novels. Derek's last book, Spanish Lessons, is an affectionate and often hilarious portrait of giving up life as a globe-trotting journalist to settling down to life in rural Spain with his wife Diane.

'Unflagging action and good writing'-New York Times

'A crossed phone call between the President of the U.S. and his Ambassador Bartlett reaches another Bartlett, Tom, a geologist, and the hot line turns out to be an oil line in the Middle East.'-Kirkus