A Gentleman's Guide To Blackmail: Secrets. Leverage. Loyalty.

Every man has a price. The clever blackmailer discovers what it is without ever asking for money. Julian Blackwood knows that secrets have value. >They were designed to create obligation. At the centre of the mystery is HARC-7, a forgotten Cold War mechanism created to prevent any one person from wielding extraordinary power. Six people were entrusted with its authority. No single member could command it. But safeguards have a dangerous habit of changing when the people who created them are gone. >And Julian's father, Edmund Blackwood, helped create it. As Julian follows the trail through London's private clubs, government archives, Savile Row, and the remnants of an intelligence world that refuses to stay buried, familiar names begin appearing in unexpected places. Arthur Pendelton knew more than he admitted. Evelyn Calloway has secrets of her own. Old enemies may not be enemies at all. >Soon the question is no longer who controls HARC-7. It is whether anyone has the right to control it. >And sometimes the most powerful response is simply: No. Sophisticated, atmospheric, and layered with hidden motives, intelligence conspiracies, moral dilemmas, and carefully constructed twists, A Gentleman's Guide to Blackmail is the second Julian Blackwood mystery from Alistair Locke.