The Pika Don Line

Living in Japan in 1951, Jong-jik receives a telephone call from his ex-OSS boss, Ron Moncrieff, in Washington. An American fighter-pilot, shot down in Korea, has been flown to a burns unit in Japan. Moncrieff wants Jong-jik to do him a favour by going to visit the man. Knowing Moncrieff of old, Jong-jik immediately suspects his mission to be more than a gesture of kindness and goodwill and, when he arrives at the hospital and speaks to the pretty nurse, Judith Speed, he is soon proved right. Who is this fighter pilot and why is he so eager to put himself in front of a firing-squad by confessing to being a Soviet spy? This historically rich novel embraces the essence of early 20th.Century aspirations for world dominance, before sweeping the reader into the post-war mayhem of the 1950s. Transported by a highly credible story, the plot deliberately develops an underlying historical mystery, to be revealed only at the very end.