Perhaps best known for his novel of social climbing in America, Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer returns with a dramatic crime story set in the early years of the twenty-first century. AN EYE FOR AN EYE does indeed feature the London Eye shown on the cover.

I hadn’t followed the series about Chief Superintendent William Warwick of Scotland Yard, and while the seventh book reads fine as a standalone, fans will get the most out of the adventure. We follow the hapless, well-placed Simon Hartley, who is sent to Saudi Arabia to secure an arms deal for British industry, despite public opposition at home. While oiling the wheels required to be favourably regarded by the regime, Simon is unfortunate to witness a murder, doubly so that a prince is a jealous killer. The room suddenly empties and the easiest person to pin blame on is the foreigner in the corner.

Lord Hartley, meanwhile, passes away peacefully in his stately home. Simon’s father never knew his son had been thrown in a Saudi jail with a terrifying cellmate. The Foreign Office contacted agent Ross Hogan, asking him to visit Saudi on a pretext, size up the situation and retrieve another witness. Once in London, Scotland Yard assigns William Warwick to protect this person so they can give evidence.

All that was easy to follow, but next we see a habitual criminal with a grudge against Warwick, called Miles Faulkner. I don’t know how likely it is that this man would do a lot of work to embarrass someone, but as the plot thickens, he also hopes to make a lot of shady money, which seems likely enough. His slimy lawyer Booth Watson, calls upon the widow of Lord Hartley, tying the two strands of the story.

With art forgeries, cameos by personalities of 2003, a flight on Concorde and sprints around central London, there’s plenty of interest. Jeffrey Archer also looks at corruption in Saudi society and asks whether Britain should be selling arms to them. Apart from one determined policewoman, the main movers and shakers are men, maybe because that is who arms dealers are. As I didn’t know anyone, and the characters were quite stereotyped, it was hard to feel sympathy. But I read it in a day because AN EYE FOR AN EYE keeps up the momentum and tangles the web nicely. With violence and occasional strong language, this is an easy read for adults, especially if they’ve followed the casebook of William Warwick.