White Eagles Over Serbia

"A spellbinder . . . a distinguished and desperately exciting book." —Daily Telegraph (London)

Methuen, a seasoned survivor of countless spy missions thrust upon him by the Old Etonians running the British Secret Service, feels he needs a respite from it all. He is looking forward to some trout fishing in Scotland when his superior, Dombey, explains that something strange is afoot in the Balkans. A fellow British spy has been murdered on a remote mountainside in Serbia by a group of underground Royalists known as the White Eagles, presumably because he fell afoul of their life-or-death struggle against Tito and the Communists. What the Royalists are up to is a mystery Dombey wants Methuen to solve. Methuen soon finds out, though, that it is his life on the line, as he is hunted by both the Communists and the White Eagles and pushed to his limit in a tour-de-force climax that will leave readers breathless.

From the author of The Alexandria Quartet, and based upon Durrell's own experiences with the Foreign Office in Bucharest after World War II, White Eagles over Serbia may be one of the finest spy thrillers ever written. With a mastery reminiscent of John Buchan, and which in turn inspired John le Carré, Durrell seizes the reader in the tightening grip of his tale, a spellbinding combination of espionage skullduggery and open-throttled adventure. He shows why many consider him one of the finest storytellers of our century.