Double Take

190 pages. Octavo (8" x 5") bound in original; publisher's red cloth with gilt lettering to spine in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Takeover by a big American drug company spelt trouble for Coburn Pharmaceuticals, a small English outfit concentrating mainly on research. Personal tension between the English chairman and the American director responsible for security rose sharply when one or two rivals came out with similar products. Could the formulae have been leaked? The Coburn board called in industrial espionage experts Quarmby and Hood. While Quarmby worked outside, getting the history of employees and checking their references, Hood posed as a management consultant and worked inside. Being an unattached bachelor, he also worked on the attractive girl assigned to him as contact, but she blew inexplicably hot and cold. Hood narrowed the suspects down to four and identified an Italian drug house as the villain. And then the formula for a secret heart drug - the principal reason for the American takeover - disappeared, and with it an employee who was discovered to have forged references. The case seemed conclusively closed. But this proved to be only the first step in a round of wheeling-dealing which further divided the board. And then murder stepped in, and with it the police and a consequent inquiry into the firm's business. Quarmby and Hood had more than industrial espionage on their hands. Condition: Small tape repair to tear at back end paper. Jacket price clipped, spine ends and corners lightly chipped, some edge wear else a very good copy in like jacket.