Something Quite Big

"Twenty years ago, Alan Davidson was a diplomat with the British mission to NATO headquarters. In his spare moments he wrote a romantic thriller, poking gentle fun at the whole business of diplomacy and foreign affairs. Not only is it a happy and charming book, yet with plenty of narrative drive -- and incidental information on the history of bicycling, Belgium, and even bird-watching -- but it anticipated the way of world events far better than even the author might have guessed. A whole NATO committee is kidnapped - did Carlos read a secret copy of this book before he abducted the OPEC Ministers in Vienna? The 'criminals' are environmentalists - was this a hidden agenda for Greenpeace? No wonder that publication was forbidden by the Foreign Office, and the only people who have seen this work are friends of the author who received 'samizdat' copies printed in Bangkok while he was serving in Vientiane as British Ambassador to Laos. This is the entire text as originally written."--