The war may have ended, but the cover-ups never did.
Israel 1950. SIB Captain Ash Carter is called into the British ’embassy’ to report on the death-in-service of a consular officer. Despite assurances that there is nothing suspicious, Carter begins a challenging investigation – one that the authorities disprove of. And the deeper he digs, the more complex it appears.
Meeting an Israeli private detective, investigating a linked crime, Carter forms an uneasy alliance. Together, they uncover something too shocking to be believed without hard proof. With the highest of political stakes, distrust at every turn, deceit, kidnapping and murder, Carter must find a balance between the law, justice and revenge.
Dead Man’s Run is the fifth historical crime novel in the Ash Carter Near East series but can be read as a stand-alone.
Murray Bailey is the author of the Ash Carter thrillers, inspired by his father’s experience in the Royal Military Police in Singapore in the early 1950s. From the prequel series, based in Cyprus and Israel, The Prisoner of Acre won the 2025 Page Turner Award. A post-Singapore series is based in the Philippines. The Heretic Cypher is the first book of a trilogy featuring a young Robert Langdon-type character decrypting secret messages written by an ancient Egyptian.
Murray is well traveled, having worked in the US, South America and a number of European countries throughout his career as a management consultant. However he also managed to find the time to edit books, contribute to articles and act as a part-time magazine editor.
Murray was born in Manchester and now lives on the south coast of England with his family and two dogs, Teddy and Muffin.
My thoughts: Ash Carter is at a bit of a loose end in the early days of the state of Israel, Britain is about to recognise the fledgling country and establish a proper embassy, but for now a handful of people staff the consulate and Ash is called in when one of them is found dead.
What first looks like a bad heart coupled with over-work, becomes more serious when the post mortem exam reveals a blow to the head and traces of cyanide. Then the dead man’s assistant goes missing.
As Ash digs into the life and work of Morton, he meets an Israeli private detective who is also looking for the missing woman, and has bad news for him about his detective friend Rosen.
Uncovering a secret web of smugglers and forgery, Ash gets a glimpse into the darkness beneath the new state, one that has its beginnings in the terrible events of the Third Reich, and stretches across oceans.
With the blend of action and conspiracy the Ash Carter books are known for, there’s something for everyone here, even a touch of romance that Ash never really manages to hang on to. It’s a clever, tense thriller, weaving together several disparate threads into an entertaining and gripping read. What will happen to Ash now as he appears to have yet again burned too many bridges? I can’t wait to find out.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
