Rolling Stone

A Foreign Office agent assumes a dead man's identity to infiltrate an international ring of thieves, blackmailers, and murderers   Peter Talbot is in Brussels tailing a dangerous con man when the opportunity of a lifetime falls in his lap. His quarry dies, leaving behind a suitcase filled with money, coded messages, a passport, and a cryptic letter about a woman named Maud Millicent Simpson.   Reborn as Spike Reilly-a.k.a. James Peter Reilly-a.k.a. Pierre Riel-Talbot follows a twisting trail that leads the undercover operative to an English country estate and into a deadly conspiracy of robbery and murder. Meanwhile, in London, Talbot's uncle, Col. Frank Garrett, is probing a string of purloined masterpieces-the latest stolen from the Louvre. Scotland Yard flummoxed, it falls to the Foreign Office to bring the culprits to justice. As the parallel investigations converge, Garrett and his nephew match wits with a cunning and beautiful criminal who's a brilliant master of disguise. And soon an innocent woman's life is in danger.   Patricia Wentworth, author of the Miss Silver Mysteries, combines "adventure, romance, and mystery" (Kirkus Reviews) in this stunning crime novel.   Rolling Stone is the 2nd book in the Frank Garrett Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.