Return Load

by Douglas Rutherford

When Bob Chester set out for the toe of Italy with his wife Sally and his little daughter Josie in the sleeper cab of his 30-ton truck, it seemed like a family excursion. But Cardona and his associates needed just such a vehicle. They also needed its crew. And there was one sure way of getting Bob and Sally’s cooperation for a return load, as it was called.
If the life of your only child is at stake, how far will you go? What hardships and exhaustions will you suffer? What degradations will you accept? And when, compared with that one life, nothing else in the world matters, is there anyone you can count as your friend? Bob and Sally learn the answers to these questions on the next 2,000 miles.

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Pseudonym of James Douglas Rutherford McConnell. He was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. He studied at Clare College, Cambridge. In the Second World War, he served in the British Intelligence Corps in North Africa and Italy. After the war, he worked as a teacher at Eton College. Apart from writing crime fiction, he also wrote books of language instruction and collaborated on two novels with Francis Durbridge.