The Pandora option - Julian Rathbone (First edition)

John Danby is an agri-consultant. His clients range from the United Nation to governments around the world. He sees his firm as a shining light in the naughty world of Agri-Business - a light which is likely to be snuffed out when the grain silos he built across Iran are all found to be polluted with poisonous fungi. 

He returns to this office in Rome with two flasks containing samples of polluted grain. Almost immediately one is blown up in a ruthless rocket attack, and the other is spirited away by the lover of Danby's young wife. Danby follows the trail across Europe - through Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Warsaw - dragging in his wake a procession of assassins, CIA operatives and Polish exiles, who all converge in Berlin where the book reaches its terrifying climax.

This is Julian Rathbone's most unashamedly genial, entertaining and riveting thriller to date. As firmly rooted in the power struggles that shape our lives as his previous book, The Crystal Contract, it is also a tender and passionate love story which carries its shifting triangle of lovers through six of the most beautiful and exciting cities of Europe.