As Kipling wrote: Show now if ye can ride. In response to a mysterious kidnapping in the East of England, a stumped police force drafts in the recently retired Australian detective Andrew Bomfi, fresh off seven career years in New York. Will he be able to unwind their riddle, or will he merely discover two mountains with no top, in which not even the lawyers will make any money out of it? If clues exist, they are hidden in Algeria and Egypt, where he is dispatched in the mistaken belief that he holds the green mamba. Across the tides, a secretive but effective cabal was busy at work levelling the political playing field. If they succeeded, the long power drift away from the silent underrepresented majority will have been reversed. An unplanned trip to another A&E was but a short and temporary obstacle in their path. I, a former charter member of the New Movement, had my own agenda, as I waited for my famous meeting of destiny, sports bottle in hand.