The Rainbird Pattern

Victor Canning

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Peter Barlow had both the motive and opportunity to kill James Gurney Hansford but he hadn't done it. For two years now he had suffered another man's punishment, two years of a life sentence for murder he had not committed. Only one man believed in his innocence and that man helped him escape. Peter is determined to prove his innocence and find the man whose punishment he has suffered. To do so he must discover the reason for Hansford's death, but with little to go on, the task ahead of him will not be a simple matter. Along the way he meets Catherine Swinton, the woman who stumbles onto his escape from prison and chooses to help rather than hinder. Together they journey from Isle of Wight, to London, and eventually Wales in pursuit of the shadowy figure determined to stop Peter from clearing his name at all costs. With the dangerous Rance always on their heels, seemingly able to track them wherever they choose to go, Peter and Catherine find themselves tangled in a web formed during the Second World War and from which, as they will discover, there is no easy escape.