Seven Times Deadly

After finishing a sales trip to Hungary, Richard Slade decides, on the spur of the moment, to visit his friend Septimus Morgan, in Nice, France. Unfortunately, what begins as a side trip turns into a traveler's worst nightmare when the protagonist is accused of killing a mysterious woman he met in a bar. When the French police attempt to arrest him, a gunfight breaks out on the streets, two officers are killed, and Richard escapes, on the run in a country where he barely speaks the language and has no money. And then he is kidnapped and discovers the woman he's suspected of murdering is alive; it turns out that she is also an MI-6 agent. Winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize for his debut novel, The Ragged End of Nowhere, Chaney has written a fast-paced novel with plenty of white-knuckle suspense and intrigue. Richard is your standard-issue everyman caught up in the machinations of spies and criminals.