On a night out in London, teenager Tony Neuman is stabbed in what appears to be a mugging. On a luxurious country estate, a lawyer is asked to use his criminal contacts to make some discreet inquiries into the disappearance of billionaire Fabian Digby. But when Digby's body turns up floating on the Grand union canal and police frogmen find Tony's watch in the canal, Tony's brother Phil comes under suspicion and the lawyer teams up with with a maverick police woman to find the link between the two deaths. The link is Gold a perfume made by the company that Digby acquired just before his death. But Gold is no ordinary perfume... it seems to have addictive properties... "The pace is fast, characters convince and the plot is well thought out. Kessler writes well." SUNDAY EXPRESS "Kessler merges tense courtroom scenes with an intriguing storyline to produce a very satisfying read." YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESS "Courtroom battles share the limelight with high-energy action as the story builds to a stunning climax." NORTH EASTERN GAZETTE

WHEN IT'S A MUSLIM, IT'S A TERRORIST. WHEN IT'S AN IRISH NATIONALIST, IT'S A FREEDOM FIGHTER! That at least was the attitude of the American judge who refused to extradite Sean Murphy to stand trial for planting a bomb in a London shopping mall that killed an Indian doctor and a three-year-old kid. Now Murphy is dead and 23-year-old American medical student Justine Levy is on trial in New York for his murder - conducting her own defense and resisting all offers of help from her young, black standby-counsel. But the evidence is circumstantial and the beautiful but vulnerable Justine remains tight-lipped. Was she a vigilante or was it personal? Did she know the child or the Indian doctor? Is she guilty? For her lawyer it IS personal because he is falling for her. But who will ultimately decide her fate? The jury? The ruthless gunman who has come to New York to kill her? Or another man who has come in pursuit of the gunman with a ruthlessness equal to that of Justine? David Kessler's first thriller doesn't just excite and mystify, it also asks some tough questions about vigilante justice and the rights of the victim.