The top brass at London’s Metropolitan Police have learnt that the head of Royalty Protection Command is living way above his salary. Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick and his team are seconded to the command to make discreet enquiries.

William graduated from London University in 1982 and declined an offer to research for a higher degree as he was keen to join the force. He’s wanted to be a detective ever since, at the age of eight – he’d solved the mystery of the missing Mars bar. Next in Line continues the series that is hoped will see William rise to be Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It is 1988 and he’s a Detective Chief Inspector.

To complicate matters MI6, Britain’s overseas intelligence agency, has warned there are strong rumours that a renegade organisation is determined to obtain maximum publicity by the assassination or kidnap of a notable target. A member of the Royal family is a possibility.

The ongoing saga of the activities of wealthy Miles Faulkner and his ruthless legal counsel, Booth Watson QC, and the arrest of Mansour Khalifah, who is wanted by Interpol, raises the stress levels of DCI Warwick. The handsome Detective Inspector Ross Hogan’s appointment of protection officer to the Princess of Wales at her request adds to the excitement.

In addition to Hogan, Detective Sergeants Jacki Roycroft and Paul Adaji, together with Detective Constable Rebecca Pankhurst – who claims suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst as a distant relation – return in this absorbing romp by an ace storyteller.

The implausible plot developments in Next in Line are cheerfully accepted as we’re willingly seduced by the author’s agreeable style.

Reviewed by Clive Hodges

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