Gavin Lyall · 1975 · thriller

Gavin Lyall's 1975 thriller. Roy Case flies charter work around the eastern Mediterranean with a partner, an ageing aircraft and no margin at all. A job that starts as a straightforward delivery turns into the business of a Crusader relic, a wreck in the desert and several people prepared to kill over both - in a corner of the world where every border is somebody's grievance.

1. 1
   Larnaca

   Case and his partner scratch a living out of Cyprus, flying whatever will pay in an aircraft that needs work they cannot afford - and take on a charter that comes with more money than the job appears to justify.

2. 2
   Beirut

   Beirut is where the deals are made and the questions are not asked, a city of brokers, arms men and antiquities that have no provenance - and where Case learns that the cargo he is being paid to move is not the point of the job.

3. 3
   Tel Aviv

   The thread runs south into Israel and the desert beyond, to a crashed aircraft and a Crusader sword that several governments would rather nobody found - and Case is the only one flying who knows where it lies.