SOJALS rating:

Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this in 1975 and most recently on the 4th ? 2011

Joe Carson is the head of security for an aeronautics company. He portrays himself as a petty and ineffectual bureaucrat. Perhaps that is what he is slowly becoming for there is little at the company to provide a challenge. However there is one trail of scattered and rare evidence that he's been developing over the past few months. He believes he has found proof of a top secret project at the facility that even he hasn't been told about. This project must be seriously secure. What will happen when he reveals knowledge of it? Carson is putting himself and the women he loves into much more danger than he realises.

There's also the mystery of who exactly is the inoffensive John Pebbles, with his worn, yet distinctive tie.

Not a bad little mystery. James White hadn't settled into his immensely popular Sector General Hospital series and so this novel has a different - though still medical - bent. Perhaps a little harder edged than his the sector general books. There was a nice little romantic twist threaded in as well. I enjoyed it the first time and this time around, once again thrilled to this story.