When Mannering ? alias the Baron ? bought the beautiful and expensive Dellamont Emeralds in Paris, he chose to ignore their history of misfortune. But then things started to go wrong ? an attempted robbery of the precious jewels, an argument with Lorna Fauntley. Strangely, there seemed to be a connection between these incidents. Stranger still, someone was impersonating the Baron?

Master crime fiction writer John Creasey's near 600 titles have sold more than 80 million copies in over 25 languages under both his own name and multiple other pseudonyms. His style varied with each identity and led to him being regarded as a literary phenomena. Amongst the many series written were 'Gideon of Scotland Yard', 'The Toff', 'The Baron', 'Dr. Palfrey' and 'Inspector West', as JJ Marric, Michael Halliday, Patrick Dawlish and others. During his lifetime Creasey enjoyed an ever increasing reputation both in the UK and overseas, especially the USA. This was further enhanced by constant revision of his works in order to assure the best possible be presented to his readers and also by many awards, not least of which was being honoured twice by the Mystery Writer's of America, latterly as Grand Master.