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The Corners of the Globe

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Spring, 1919. James ‘Max’ Maxted, former Great War flying ace, returns to the trail of murder, treachery and half-buried secrets he set out on in The Ways of the World. He left Paris after avenging the murder of his father, Sir Henry Maxted, a senior member of the British delegation to the post-war peace conference. But he was convinced there was more – much more – to be discovered about what Sir Henry had been trying to accomplish. And he suspected elusive German spymaster Fritz Lemmer knew the truth of it.
Now, enlisted under false colours in Lemmer’s service but with his loyalty pledged to the British Secret Service, Max sets out on his first – and possibly last – mission for Lemmer. It takes him to the far north of Scotland – to the Orkney Isles, where the German High Seas Fleet has been impounded in Scapa Flow, its fate to be decided at the conference-table in Paris. Max has been sent to recover a document held aboard one of the German ships. What that document contains forces him to break cover sooner than he would have wished and to embark on a desperate race south, towards London, with information that could destroy Lemmer – if Max, as seems unlikely, lives to deliver it...
In the second volume of the Wide World trilogy, the story opens out and at the same time accelerates. At the end of the first book, The Ways of the World, James Maxted, known as Max, enlisted under false colours in Fritz Lemmer’s spy network. As The Corners of the Globe begins, we find out where Lemmer sent him on his first mission: the Orkneys, where the German High Seas Fleet, seized at the end of the war, is anchored under guard in Scapa Flow.
Max is a long way from Paris and an even longer way from safety. As his hunt for the truth behind his father’s death continues, he finds himself in a race which only the swiftest will survive. But these are equally dangerous times for the friends he left behind. The chase that ensues when Max lays his hands on the treasure Lemmer has sent him to find is counterpointed by the murderous intrigues that follow the arrival in Paris of Sir Henry Maxted’s old enemy from Japan, Count Tomura.
The challenges and the pleasures of plotting this book have revolved around uncovering further secrets in the lives and pasts of many of the leading characters in the story: Schools Morahan, Malory Hollander, Lady Maxted, le Singe and, perhaps above all, Sir Henry Maxted. Not only do we discover much more about them and their motives, but we also have to question what we thought we knew about the mystery Max is struggling to unravel.
And then there is the pace of the story. I wanted to mirror the desperation of Max’s flight from murderous agents of Lemmer with the sheer breathlessness of the chase. In this story the journey – by ship, train, car or racing feet – is a vital part of the whole. Max will not stop now. He will follow the trail of the truth to whichever corner of the globe he has to. And I hope readers will be as exhilarated as I have been by travelling with him.