The Paduan Conspiracy

The discovery of a dead man at Chesters Fort meant that CI Cardinal's plans to smash the gang of his old adversary Clifford were thwarted.

He assigns DS Grout to investigate the murder while he co-ordinates the hunt for gang-leader Clifford. The investigation begins at Hadrian's Wall, leads to an University Archaeological department and a dealer in erotica in York, but a second murder-of a beautiful photographic model-sends Cardinal and Grout to the centre of an international art-smuggling organisation on the Bodensee. There Grout faces death at the hands of a professional killer, before the trail seems to end, inconclusively, with a third murder in Amsterdam.

The Clifford gang is broken but the identity of the killer can be discovered only when a separate matter is resolved-the riddle of the Paduan Conspiracy.