Copper, Gold and Treasure

Roderick Copper (67), retired Major, and Benny Gold (70), London cabbie, apply on the same morning for residential places with the Rudyard Trust for Retired Officers and Gentlemen. But its eccentric and drunken Director tells them the Trust is technically bankrupt, its multimillion-pound assets about to be divided between the Founder's descendents—a curious, motley crew.Banker and amateur sleuth Mark Treasure is called in when Copper and Gold's bizarre scheme to preserve the charity goes wrong with terrifying consequences—kidnapping, stabbing and sudden death—involving one of the bank's clients, ex-President Cruba of Ngonga, exiled in London with his sensuous third wife, his 15-year-old son, and Gérard Opac, his handsome, ambitious aide. It is up to Mark Treasure to make sense out of all of this, which he does with his customary charm and aplomb.