Goldmine: London W.I.

by Philip Daniels

After serving time for a crime he did not commit, Edward Walton is ready for revenge. Three years in prison have fanned Walton's hatred of the business partner who betrayed him, first by framing him for embezzlement and then by stealing his lovely, wayward wife.
But that is before he meets the smoothtalking military gentleman known only as "the major." The major has a scheme that sounds little short of lunatic, one that certainly will not work without Walton's skills as a professional architect. With his record, Walton is unsuccessful in his attempts to find more mainstream employment and is therefore willing to go along with the plan - but only on his terms. Distrusting the major and his comrades, Walton devises his own network of safety measures, and even then he must watch his back.
If all goes well, the job will be worth millions - or ten years' hard labor - and Walton might even get his revenge as a bonus.

158 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Michael Mallory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book and picked it up because it looked so unusual: it was a very thin hardcover in a world of big, thick, chunky mysteries. At first I thought it might be YA, but it wasn't; it was simply old (1979). Anyway, "Goldmine -- London W.1" is a well-written heist thriller involving a seemingly impossible task of tunneling into the cash depository of a major London department store (Harrods, under an assumed name). It quickly becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the protagonist, a man just released from prison for a crime he did not commit (do they ever?) and the shadowy mastermind called "The Major" who recruits him to facilitate the scheme. While the book peters out a bit at the end, it manages to maintain interest throughout its slim 158 pages, with author Daniels (a pseudonym) pulling off the trick of keeping the characters clear, even though they sometimes adopt other identities. This isn't a great book, but it's certainly worth an evening.