A Necessary End

The use of a double is said to be a common expedient of dictators anxious to reduce the load of ceremonial appearances or to make the job of assassinating them that much harder. But in a totalitarian state, founded on force and terror and admitting no scruples of mercy or morality, the existence of a double creates dangers of its own. Who, after all, can tell which is which?

This provides the theme for a brilliant, fast-moving account of a struggle for power in a European country dominated by a veteran general, El Supremo, whose subordinates are watching and waiting to seize the succession. As in all good stories, unexpected twists keep shifting the focus of tension till the final ironic denouement is suddenly seen to be inevitable - a necessary end.

Stephen Harper, whose first novel this is, is the Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Daily Express. He has lived in many capitals including Madrid and Rome, both of which provide background for his fictional country 'Rospania'.

He has served as Moscow correspondent, has witnessed scores of military coups from Lisbon to Seoul, and has reported war in Vietnam, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, as well as terrorism in Aden, Cyprus and elsewhere. Like Frederick Forsyth he has brought the first-hand skills of the reporter to the writing of an explosively contemporary piece of fiction.

© Stephen Harper 1975

First published 1975 by William Collins Sons & Co

ISBN 0 00 222105 5