Shard at Bay — Philip McCutchan

Britain is on the brink...

Detective Chief Superintendent Shard on secondment from the Yard to the Foreign Office, but Hedge was called out to do field work, something he hated more than anything. Shard was somewhere in Wales liaising with Cardiff police over a man, a foreigner of course, who'd disembarked from a ship in the docks … much to Hedge's annoyance.

Called out to identify an intruder at the nuclear submarine base on the Clyde, an Arab, shot dead by a security guard … Hedge comes across a message that sends shivers down his spine … Detachment X is a terrorist group that will stop at nothing to carry out their objective. With Detective Shard's wife, Beth, caught up in the threat, Shard has no choice but to do all he can, despite the fact he's suspended from active duty.

With a new bombing campaign against mainland Britain is launched, they are put on full alert … with no desire to inform, and alarm, the general public. Ho Suzy, a pregnant Korean girl is arrested for depositing money into Shard's account … The combination of an Arab, some Irish and the Korean girl forms an explosive cocktail that spells trouble at various military and naval establishments from Faslane on the Gareloch to the south of England … but their prime objective is to target Shard …

Philip McCutchan began writing in 1956. Prior to this, he joined the Royal Navy on the outbreak of World War Two as an Ordinary Signalman and ended the war as a lieutenant, having served in destroyers, aircraft carriers, cruisers, a battleships battlecruiser, an armed trawler, and an ocean boarding vessel. For three years after the war he sailed in Orient Liners on the Australian run and then for a time became an assistant master in a preparatory school.