The intelligent and gripping thriller of treason and sexual intrigue in the south of France is back in print.

After a despicable act of treason causes the slaughter of a British-led detachment of mercenaries in Indonesia, the list of suspects is narrowed to two young diplomats at the British Embassy in Jakarta. One of them, brilliant and charming Cambridge graduate Willy Ludley, disappears to Argentina, so it is assumed he is the traitor; case closed. The other suspect advances in his career and a decade later is up for an embassy post in Washington. The Foreign Office must now clear up any questions about his possible connection to the Indonesian affair.

Simon Milson, of the Foreign Office and an old friend of Ludley's from Cambridge, catches the assignment. If Ludley can be confirmed as the traitor, the other suspect will be cleared. Milson contrives to drop in on Ludley and his wife at their home in Nice, the Villa Golitsyn, turning up with a runaway schoolgirl in tow. Amidst an increasing febrile atmosphere, fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol, intense philosophical conversations, and myriad sexual temptations, Ludley and Milson struggle with their principles and their pasts in this elegant and masterful thriller, first published in 1981, set equally in the sun-drenched Mediterranean and a moral no-man's land.