The Enemy

The Enemy was published in 1977 with a cover design by Mark Lawrence.

‘Malcolm Jaggard, financial consultant, was engaged to Penelope Ashton, the daughter of a successful industrialist and employed in genetics research at a government establishment. While he was visiting the Ashtons’ opulent home in Buckinghamshire, Penny’s sister was viciously attacked by an unknown assailant. Why?

For some reason wealthy, successful George Ashton panicked and disappeared. So did his exemplary manservant. And Penny learned for the first time that her fiancé was a secret agent and that her father’s past was very different from what she had grown up believing.

Jaggard sets out to trace the vanished Ashton, and the scene moves to Sweden and a hair-raising manhunt through its wintry forests. Unaccountable rivalries between intelligence groups, shocking experiments in genetic engineering, and the deepening mystery surrounding Ashton’s disappearance – these are but some of the elements in this startling story which is founded on terrifying scientific facts. Desmond Bagley weaves these into a compelling novel of adventure which more than lives up to the high level of its predecessors.’