Flush with the proceeds from the 'Israeli Caper' Prentice takes up with Caroline Maxwell the daughter of Lord Stigwell of Bashwell Higham. She is working as a Financial Advisor at Spooner, Sedgewick & Pell a City branch of Standish Holdings Plc., her father's Business Empire - a relic of the Victorian Era. Prentice is looking for advice on where to invest his new found riches from the 'Israeli Caper'.
But it all comes apart at the seams when Caroline Maxwell is killed in a mysterious accident at the Devil's Elbow on a nearby country lane. Prentice is devastated and goes looking for answers, he uncovers a web of revenge, deceit and sharp practice, by a disaffected Standish executive demoted from the Standish Rome Office for dereliction of duty.
Autorentext
Dave Black grew up farming in a small village in rural Derbyshire and went on to travel the world as an Aero Service Engineer on fighters, freighters and passenger jets for the military, airlines and corporate operators. Before turning to showbiz, business and politics as an hotelier, elected member and motorbike stuntrider. These novels he wrote, whiling away hours of solitude in faraway places based on people he met and places he visited, often best forgotten.
Klappentext
Bring him to my Altar
Flush with his proceeds from the Israeli Caper, Prentice branches out. In seeking investment opportunity for his change of fortune, he takes up with Investment Manager Caroline Maxwell, daughter of Lord Stigwell of Bashwell Higham, scion of centuries old Victorian Merchant Trader Standish Holdings.
They buy an Elizabethan Manor House to build a life together, but her Ladyship is cut down in a mysterious crash at the notorious Devil's Elbow. A vicious curving, left hand bend, between drystone embankments on a nearby country lane. It looks like fate has dealt a deadly blow, but Prentice discovers the accelerator linkage of her Yellow Rolls-Royce has been rigged.
Setting out at Lord Stigwell's behest to find the culprit and deliver retribution, he turns up a disaffected Standish executive Gerald Furniss. Disciplined for a serious error of judgement at the Standish Office in Rome, he's been posted to a back office job at Standish's Sutler Towers in the 'City'. He's furious at being singled out and seeking vengeance, he teams up with a former associate, Mafia Casino boss Carlo Rossini, now running Starkey's Casino in London's West End.
Furniss has been fiddling the Standish Stockbroking arm under Caroline's nose. Forging bonds from the back office where's now employed and supplying them to Carlo Rossini for use as collateral, in Mafia rackets. He's out to get even. Caroline Maxwell figures out what's going-on and he turns to murder to protect his scam. Before fleeing to Rome, in harness with his new good buddy Carlo Rossini, as he becomes the Capo of Capos.
While Prentice in harness with Collins and pals from the Israeli Caper, track him down to a dilapidated semi in West Ealing and on to a fancy riverside villa on the Rubicon in Rome, as he closes in to deliver retribution. Furniss flees when he realises he's been rumbled and falling foul of his Mafia connections, he runs for safety with Prentice and his former Mafia buddies in hot pursuit.
Who will come out on top his former Mafia associates, Prentice and Collins or the Hand of Fate? Read on for the conclusion as this all-action adventure races up and down the length of the Apennine Peninsula as Furniss gets his come-uppance. ("alea iacta est" - the die is cast.)