Between The Mountains And The Sea

1997. Retired C&E Commissioner Nick Storey and his wife Rosemary (ex DCI in the Fraud Squad) are invited to visit the La Spezia offices of the Italian Customs and Guardia di Finanza by a retired senior official, in order to learn whether there is any corruption there. Sceptical that they will discover anything, Nick and Rosemary agree, but overnight they witness the aftermath of a massacre of "illegals" by a ship belonging to the authorities in a bay close to where they are staying. Their host advises them not to report it, as it will get nowhere but put their lives at risk. Not knowing the country, they agree. They are subsequently questioned by various people claiming to represent various law and order organisations, two devious British ex-pats and a local politician. After shots are fired over their heads in a deserted place as a warning, matters turn violent, brutal and ugly and their host, wittingly or unwittingly, places their lives at great danger. "Between the mountains and the sea" is the thirtieth-second book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner