Take two world leaders, a man with a mission and a homicidal terrorist seeking revenge and you have 'THE LICHFIELD CONSPIRACY'. Jack Higgins and John Harris writing at their thrilling, spy-catcher best could possibly have come up with a fast-paced adventure like THE LITCHFIELD CONSPIRACY but this novel is a product of the fertile imagination of Derek Coleman who gave us the devastatingly successful crime novel GUILTY? and its sequels. Late in 2003 President George W. Bush is making a state visit to Britain. On the final day the President will fly to Prime Minister Blair's constituency where the two world leaders are to have a photo opportunity for the press. On the way, they intend to stop in the city of Lichfield to meet some of the British soldiers who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Naturally, precautions are taken against terrorist outrages but, in one 'friendly' embassy, there is a man who was planning just such an attack. Unable to use his own people because they would stand out in the crowd he finds Ben Shaughnessy, an Irish killer, disillusioned with his cause and determined to exact revenge on both Britain and America for fourteen long years spent in prison. It is a potent combination and to oppose them there is only an aging policeman and Ian McCloud, a military police officer, who suspects there is a plot but who cannot get anyone to believe him. Shaughnessy forces Margaret Gregson, an innocent girl, and her dying mother to help him. McCloud falls for the girl but has to betray her in an effort to thwart the conspiracy. It is a race against time as the day of the world leader's visit approaches. The terrorists get the weapons they need and finalize their plans but they are now being hunted by their own Irish terror organizations as well as the two policemen who are searching frantically to find them. THE LICHFIELD CONSPIRACY races along at a furious pace leaving the reader virtually gasping for breath and dying to know what happens next right through to the final chapter where they all come together in an explosive finale.
