11 Harrowhouse

Description for 11 HARROWHOUSE by Gerald A Browne:

Authentically grounded in the secret operations of the world's most lucrative and least-known cartel, here is a novel in the Hitchcock tradition of high adventure, romance and suspense, a story combining an ingenious Riffi-like theft with an ensuing chase that moves across many of the more exotic faces of Europe.

The place is 11 Harrowhouse, a dignified structure in London's post Mayfair district. The target is deep within its subterranean vault---some thirteen billion dollars worth of diamonds, constituting the world's major diamond inventory, dispensed by an international monopoly known as The System, its tentacles extending from the mines of South Africa to this unobtrusive building and out again to circle the globe. It is J Clyde Massey, a man whose personal wealth also runs into billions, who commissions the operation not for love of money but for the pleasure of revenge. For his operatives he selects a most unlikely crew:

Chesser, an American of modest credentials with The System, an urbane man with a unique asset---his association with the second principal member of the group: a Swiss named Maren, marvelously endowed in body and mind, sustained by a love of danger and the attentions of a man named Chesser.

The action of 11 HARROWHOUSE moves from London to the French Riviera, from a chateau outside Paris to a remote island in the Mediterranean, climaxing in the high, snow-capped mountains of Switzerland. It is a breathtaking story, featuring two lovers rarely encountered and not soon to be forgotten.