Four Days To The Fireworks: A nail-biting Cold War escape thriller

by Philip Purser

A tense and thrilling manhunt! Perfect for fans of Tom Clancy, John Le Carré, Jack Higgins and Irving A. Greenfield

A secret identity is about to be exposed…

Ten years ago a scientist called James Dell disappeared behind the Iron Curtain after passing secrets to the Russians.

Or so it had been assumed, until a Sunday newspaper reveals that he has, all this time, been in hiding in a Buckinghamshire village.

Working as a garage hand, married to his working-class wife, Dell has two children and a powerful desire to remain hidden.

When he realises his whereabouts have been leaked, he panics, packs his family into a car and bolts.

With the British Press in full cry, the pursuit of the Dulls becomes a merciless witch-hunt.

Can they reach the coast and escape to safety? Does Dell deserve to start again?

Or will his past mistakes catch up with him…?

FOUR DAYS TO THE FIREWORKS is a tense political thriller set during the Cold War in 1960s England.

‘lies somewhere between The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Rabbit, Run.’ — Times Literary Supplement

‘First-rate’ — The Daily Telegraph

185 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 2, 2024

About the author

Philip Purser saw army service in the final days of WWII and in occupied Germany before toying with the idea of becoming an engineer. Journalism claimed him instead, first in Scotland and then Fleet Street. He is perhaps best known as the long-serving television critic for the Sunday Telegraph, but apart from novels he has also written television dramas, radio plays and biographies. His thriller Lights in the Sky, published in 2005, was a "rather belated" follow-up to Night of Glass. His thrillers are all marked by skilful, unfussy story-telling and a blend of suspense and farce similar to early Hitchcock, where un-heroic characters are forced by circumstances to perform very heroic deeds. He is married to crime writer Ann Purser.