Royal Heist » (~)

Lynda La Plante is the renowned author and creator of Prime Suspect. She also wrote the teleplay for Bella Mafia, the miniseries based on her novel of the same name. Her scriptwriting has won an Emmy Award, several BAFTA awards, and the Edgar Allan Poe Writer’s Award. She is the author of numerous successful thrillers, including Cold Shoulder, Cold Blood, and Cold Heart.

From the Hardcover edition.

From Lynda La Plante, one of the world's greatest crime writers, Royal Heist is a big, dashing novel of deception, passion, and international suspense, in which a man with a dangerous double life masterminds the greatest robbery of all time.

With a beautiful family and a magnificent fortune, Edward de Jersey is making news with his prized racehorse Royal Flush. But while de Jersey socializes with the cream of English society, he keeps to himself the details of his background and how he acquired his wealth. The son of an East End bookie, de Jersey reinvented himself as an aristocrat after pulling off some of England's most notorious heists. He has no intention of ever going back to crime . . . until his financial adviser loses his entire fortune in a disastrous investment and de Jersey decides to retrieve it the old-fashioned way: by stealing it.

From Monaco to the Hamptons, from London to the shadowy back alleys of cyberspace, de Jersey goes into action, using guile, force, and the latest technology to put together the perfect plan. Drawing on the expertise of a computer hacker with a passion for Elvis, the inside knowledge of a dying aristocrat, and the skill of a professional impersonator, de Jersey is ready to commit his greatest and final crime. He's going to steal the crown jewels from under the nose of the royals themselves.

Now, as Royal Flush prepares for a spectacular run at the Derby, de Jersey faces his moment of truth: How much is he willing to risk to win the sport's most coveted prize? And just how far will he go to get away with the perfect crime?

A novel that builds to an amazing crescendo of suspense, Royal Heist is a glamorous and gritty tale of men andwomen bound together by love, greed, trust, and mistrust. With all the pounding excitement of a high-stakes horse race, this is fiction that takes hold, doesn't let go, and dares us to keep guessing until the very end.

Publishers Weekly

La Plante (Prime Suspect, etc.) heads for Ascot in this involving heist novel about a British champion racehorse owner who decides to steal the Crown Jewels after losing his fortune in an Internet scam. Son of a London bookie, husband of a Swedish beauty and owner of an enviable stable of horses, Edward de Jersey is also the retired mastermind of one of Britain's most famous unsolved robberies, a man who would rather die than give up his life of privilege. Step by step, he plans, prepares and executes a modern version of the Great Train Robbery, overcoming computerized security systems and penetrating royal protocol. De Jersey brutally dispenses enemies and boldly protects friends on both sides of the Atlantic, but it is his team of accomplices that makes this classic crime caper a compelling read, among them Pamela, the ex-con television actress; Lord Westbrook, the disgraced palace equerry; and Marsh, the computer whiz turned crook. La Plante's knowledge of the sport of kings, her sense of irony in human relationships and her deceptively cool narrative style allow her to visit familiar crime fiction territory with aplomb. She does not create the equal of her Masterpiece Theatre detective Jane Tennison, but she weaves an intricate story of crime and character that starts off slowly and then keeps the reader guessing as it gallops to a photo finish. Agent, Esther Newberg. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.