Poison in Paris

by Robert Wilton

When the British Government asked Harry Delamere to courier a secret document from Constantinople to Paris on the Orient Express, it seemed such a simple way to cover a couple of months' rent and some outstanding bills; pleasant, even. But somebody knows a lot more than he does, nobody trusts him, and pretty much everybody's trying to kill him.All the glamour of the Orient Express, melodrama, excitement, sinister foreign gentlemen, exotic foreign ladies, bandits, revolutionaries, assassins, other exotic foreign ladies, interruptions to the regular timetable, disguises, explosions, outrages, breath-taking escapes from death and an unfortunate incident in a Viennese lavatory.Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, following the highly-regarded entertainment of 'Death and the Dreadnought' (the one with the burlesque dancer and the duck pâté sandwich, though not at the same time) it's another extract from the memoirs of Sir Henry Delamere, and another he could have well done without.

276 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 11, 2020

About the author

Out now! The 'rare, clever treat' that is 'Treason's Spring'...

Robert Wilton worked in a number of British Government Departments, including a stint as Private Secretary to three successive UK Secretaries of State for Defence. He was advisor to the Prime Minister of Kosovo in the period leading to the country's independence, and now helps to run an international human rights mission in Albania. He's co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity stimulating and supporting projects in education, culture and the environment.

His new historical thriller 'Treason's Spring' is out imminently. It's a prequel to 'Treason's Tide' (hb 'The Emperor's Gold'), which was an Amazon historical fiction Number One, one of Waterstone's 'best new debut novels', and won the Historical Writers' Association/Goldsboro Crown for best debut. 'Sensational... great, intelligent, fun' (Time Out) ' and 'Literary gold... superbly satisfying...beautifully written, wonderfully clever' (Daily Telegraph), it was written in various odd bits of Europe on a computer with no functioning full-stop key, was edited in Russia and Mongolia, and was almost but mercifully not quite blown up by the British Transport Police.

His series of historical espionage thrillers drawing on the archive of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey also includes 'Traitor's Field', an epic tapestry of the British Civil Wars and 'a new benchmark for the literary historical thriller. He achieves that Holy Grail of utterly absorbing, edge-of-the-seat thriller with a book of ideas' (M.C.Scott). He launched the 'learned, beautifully written, elegant spy thriller' (The Times) 'The Spider of Sarajevo' in Sarajevo on June 28th 2014, the exact centenary of the events it re-tells.

Robert Wilton also writes on the history and culture of south-eastern Europe, works as a life coach and occasional voice artist, and translates Albanian poetry. He divides his time between the Balkans and Cornwall.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might have been called ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, but I understand someone else pinched that title. It’s the second outing for Sir Henry Delamere in Robert Wilton’s ‘Gentleman Adventurer’ series. It’s a lot of fun but really not a patch on his earlier Comptrollerate-General novels which had a depth and authenticity to them. This is fun to read, and probably fun to write. A paragraph from the back cover says it all really:
‘All the glamour of the Orient Express, melodrama, excitement, sinister foreign gentlemen, exotic foreign ladies, bandits, revolutionaries, assassins, other exotic foreign ladies, interruptions to the regular timetable, surprises, disguises, explosions and outrages, breath-taking escapes from death and an unfortunate incident in a Viennese lavatory’.
All true and I enjoyed it but I felt Robert Wilton has produced much better. I hope he will do again.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it - for many reasons! These included the brilliant cast of characters, within the unity of place, (with all action in/ around one train on its journey from Constantinople to Paris), the tricks used against the authorities (and the reader?), the often laugh-out-loud dialogue and narrative and general Wodehousian tone. A real page-turner

[Janet Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fun. Loved the characters, loved the humour. A rollicking plot. Rather a masculine view point, maybe a product of the time and place of its setting.

[Neil Bradford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant entertainment!