From Publishers Weekly
Having turned former IRA terrorist Sean Dillon into a hero in Thunder Point , Higgins refines his portrait of that deadly little man even further here by allowing him to acquire almost mystical kung-fu skills. This latest thriller opens with a prologue set in Chungking, 1944, during which Mao Zedong and Lord Louis Mountbatten sign the mysterious Chungking Covenant--a promise by Mao to extend the treaty giving Britain control of Hong Kong by 100 years. With Hong Kong due to be returned to China in 1997, the existence of such an agreement could destroy delicate international relationships. One copy of this vital document may still exist, supposedly hidden in a Scottish castle known as Loch Dhu ("Place of Dark Waters"). American billionaire Carl Morgan, determined to locate the document so that he and his Mafia associates might have leverage to protect their operations in Hong Kong, takes up residence in the castle with Asta, his stepdaughter. On the scene to foil their designs are Dillon, Brigadier Charles Ferguson and his Chief Inspector, Hannah Bernstein. Following a path from the castle to a villa in Sicily to a final confrontation in London, the search leaves a bloody trail. Unfortunately, revelation of the novel's most duplicitous villain will come as no surprise to most readers. Nevertheless, Higgins compensates for a less than elegant style with his signature unrelenting pace. BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Special agent Sean Dillon seems genetically engineered for the 1990s. As a former IRA operative, he's terrorist chic, but since he's killed no women or children, he's also very PC. In any case, Dillon returns from Higgins' Thunder Point and Eye of the Storm (1992) to help British intelligence locate the Chungking Covenant, a 1944 document in which Winston Churchill agreed to assist Mao Tse-tung against the Japanese for Mao's promise to extend Britain's lease of Hong Kong for another 100 years, to 2097, should his revolution succeed. For some reason, the Mafia--and not the all-powerful Chinese triads?--are most interested in exposing the document and thus sustaining their lucrative Asian drug trade another century. However, Britain fears that revealing the covenant would strain already-delicate relations among the UK, China, and the U.S. This is pure espionage pulp from its far-fetched plot to its cut-out characters. But Higgins keeps the action too crisp and the settings too luxuriant for us to worry much about that. Alan Moores