Red Fox - 1979

Summary
Beautiful, seductive and extremely dangerous, Franca Tantardini is one of Italy's most ruthless political extremists. When she is captured in a shoot-out her fanatical young lover, Ginacarlo Battestini, vows to set her free and, with quiet watchfulness, waits for the moment to strike.

In Rome, a British business man, Geoffrey Harrison, has been taken hostage by a ruthless organised crime syndicate - kidnap is, after all, a growth industry. The British Government are adamant that they will not pay the two-million-dollar ransom and discharge responsibility to the Italian police. As political wrangling takes hold, Ballestini sees a weakness and realises that the only way to secure the release of his beloved Franca is to capture Harrison and bargain his life for hers.

The authorities are confronted with a terrible choice. Should they release a woman who has masterminded the murder of so many or let an innocent man die.

Extract
The man in the back drew from a grip bag that rested on the floor between his legs the stocking masks that they would wear, purchased the previous afternoon in the Standa supermarket and pierced with a knife for eye and mouth vents. Without a word, he passed two forward to his companions, then dived again into the bag. A snub-barrelled Beretta pistol for the driver, who probably had no need for a gun at all as his work was to drive. For himself and the front passenger there were squat submachine-guns made angular as he fitted the magazine sticks. The quiet in the car was fractured by the heavy metallic clacking of the weapons being armed.

Reviews
"The best suspense novel I've read this year" DAILY MAIL

"Not since Le Carre has the emergence of an international thriller writer been as stunning as that of Gerald Seymour" LOS ANGELES TIMES

"His best thriller yet: taut, suspenseful, eminently topical" SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

"Not only is the story top class, for a relative outsider Seymour shows a remarkable insight into the minds of the young anarchists" SUNDAY TRIBUNE