Blackshirt Wins the Trick

'Roderic Jeffries established a very high reputation for himself.' -Maurice Richardson, The Observer

On the last night of his stay in the South of France, Richard Verrell, aka Blackshirt, visits the local Casino.

To his surprise, he wins...

A certain young lady takes sufficient interest in him because of this strike of luck. She wants to see him mugged and robbed.

Blackshirt is a burglar and has been wanted by the police for a very long time. The fact that this woman manages to rob him is somewhat humiliating to an experienced criminal such as he.

Through this encounter he meets whom he now recognises to be Janet Dove for the second time - a meeting that pleases him as much as it embarrasses her... since, not so very long ago, Janet had filched the Roselea Rubies from under his nose!

Then there's the fact that the safe of their hostess has just been emptied by expert hands - and that the Jackdaw, second only to Blackshirt in skill, was lurking in the background.

To anyone with Blackshirt's puckish sense of humour, the challenge to take a hand in cracking the Darthweight safe is irresistible.

So, as in the case of Blackshirt the Audacious, once more the three pit themselves against one another in an effort to win the final trick.

Blackshirt, the irrepressible adventurer - Janet, charming and lovely, but utterly ruthless - Peebles, who knows what he wants and is determined to get it no matter who is in the way.

Blackshirt Wins the Trick is a thrilling page-turner that will keep you hooked until the very end.

Roderic Jeffries was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Harrow View House Preparatory School and the Department of Navigation, University of Southampton. In 1943, he joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as an apprentice and sailed to Australia and New Zealand, but later transferred to the Union Castle Company in order to visit a different part of the world. He returned to England in 1949 where he was admitted to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and read for the Bar at the same time as he began to write. He was called to the Bar in 1953, and after one year's pupilage, practiced law for a few terms during which time there to write full time. His first book, a sea story for juveniles, was published in 1950.


Genre: Mystery