Taken By Experts

Short Description

Their mothers couldn’t tell them apart; their lovers could. Two public figures, identical twins, challenge the wits of police when their identities become confused. Lives and millions of dollars of investor’s money are at stake. One brother is brutally murdered. Which one is it? One is an expert at taking the life savings of innocent investors.

Long Description

Greg Parkinson is drunk enough and sober enough to leave his car after a Saturday night birthday binge and wander into the loading bay of a city warehouse for shelter. He hears somebody’s death cries and stumbles upon the butchered body of Anton Clegg. Clegg is a white collar criminal who excels in misappropriating investors' funds. The question must be raised; is it Anton Clegg? His identical twin brother is knight of the realm Sir Alexander Clegg, philanthropist. The two are often mistaken for each other. Who was the one slain in that Auckland City cold store. No fingers means no fingerprints which makes it hard to confirm the identity of the bloodied remains. Sir Alex is in Brunei on business which further frustrates immediate identification. And so begin the chapters of corruption, murder and suspicion. Anton Clegg is not unknown to Greg Parkinson who with Clegg’s blood on him is the immediate suspect. It was one of Clegg’s investment companies those years before that had eaten up two million dollars of Greg’s money and in the process destroyed his marriage. ‘I was Taken by Experts,’ he told the police who were keen to connect him to the crime in the cold store. This story is more intricate than that, however, with a string of dead bodies and savage deeds reaching from the Eastern Bay of Plenty to Bay of Islands; from Hamilton City in New Zealand to The Rocks on the waterfront of Sydney. The strange happenings at The Stables, the home of Sir Alex, add spice to a story which has leading characters disappearing, with Sir Alex himself, succumbing to a stroke which leaves him immobilized and at the mercy of discriminate people such as his head groom Benjamin Scully and his person physician and surgeon John Delmage. Add to the mix the devious dealing of barrister Wolfgang Blauner who has clear intentions of redirecting the entire content of the Clegg empire into a private funding account which will be shared by the a select numbers of operators. The mystery deeps and suspicions are raised with the disappearance of Sir Alex Clegg’s housekeeper, Yvonne Barns who has been his personal friend and servant for twenty years. How dangerous, or how harmless, is Wannenburg Morne, the square headed South African ex rugby player, master carpenter and cabinet maker whose face had been rearranged so many times in the front row of the scrum his own mother would have had difficulty recognising him? Answering only to the name Shark, his service in the French Foreign Legion has fine-tuned his hard, unforgiving nature which never encourages long friendships and he conforms well to the job description laid down by the main players in this game of life, death and elimination. This is an exciting plot of extortion and corrupt activity; fast moving and seething with interesting characters trying hard to remain alive. All are members of the hardest school of criminals who know better than to turn their backs of those working beside them. Twists and turns will have you guessing through to the last pages. This is vicious crime at its most ruthless executed by hardened criminals who allow no one to stand in their way.

Adult content.  Suitable for all ages.

Category.   Drama – suspense – romance - theatre

Keywords  Murder – suspense – romance – police – crime - detective – adventure          

                    killing – violence