It wasn't just a tank. It was the prototype, next generation, Main Battle Tank, with a radically new gun. And now it was missing, presumed to be about to fall into hostile hands.

Secretly loaned to the Jordanian army for desert evaluation tests, it had vanished in the confusion of a revolt by an entire armoured brigade.

From the bloody evidence of a London hotel siege it is clear that the events are deliberately connected. The MBT90 must be found, and if necessary, destroyed, in order to preserve its secrets.

SAS-trained Major Harry Maxim is sent in. But what starts as a simple demolition job is about to turn into a desperate run for freedom as their tank is hunted across a desert wilderness.

First published in 1988, Uncle Target is the fourth and final novel from Gavin Lyall's Harry Maxim series.

About the Author

Gavin Lyall (1932-2003) lived in Hampstead and enjoyed sailing on the Thames in his motor cruiser. From 1959 to 1962 he was a newspaper reporter and the aviation correspondent for the Sunday Times. His first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, was published in 1961, drawing from his personal experiences in the Libyan Desert and in Greece. Lyall left journalism in 1963 to become a full-time author, writing 17 novels before his death in 2003.

Major Harry Maxim, formerly of the SAS, is a mysterious man who lost his wife to a horrific plane accident. He is as surprised as anyone when he is hired by 10 Downing Street to assist in matters of defence and security.

Using all the knowledge from his days in military intelligence, he tries to understand and counter a number of suspect events: a suicide at the ministry of defence, a hand grenade thrown through the door of number ten and a Czech defector with a file worth killing for.

They all seem to point towards Professor John Tyler, a nuclear strategist who will state Britain's case when Europe's think tank on Armageddon gathers in Luxembourg.

First published in 1980, The Secret Servant begins Gavin Lyall's Harry Maxim series.

Shabby Bill Carey pilots his doddering amphibious plane over the forests of northern Finland, making a precarious living flying aerial survey flights and occasional charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy in his beat-up old de Havilland Beaver. Despite his perpetual hangover, Carey s a wizard with planes and very quick at clues when he suspect plotting and sabotage.

Towards the end of the flying season, a wealthy American hunter hires him to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border in order to hunt bear. Subsequently, he is suspected by the Finnish secret police for smuggling and espionage. Things get even more serious when the American hunter's beautiful sister turns up to search for her brother, and his fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents. Cary suspects that the events he is increasingly involved in may stem from an incident in his wartime past.

The Most Dangerous Game was a runner-up for the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award in 1964. 

'Mr Kemp - I believe you smuggle art? I have a little proposition...'

It seemed like money for old rope. All Kemp had to do was arrange the smooth transportation of the works of art his wealthy patron was secretly buying on behalf of the Nicaraguan government across the frontier into Switzerland. And anything was preferable to London in January.

It started to go badly wrong when he woke up in a Zurich park with a bump the size of a burial mound on his head, minus the priceless Cezanne he'd been carrying. The very next day he ran into Harry Burroughs at the airport. Kemp suspected it wasn't just coincidence.

For Burroughs was a fine-art dealer, and an even finer crook. If he was mixed up in all this, Kemp knew that from now on he would have to earn his money - the hard way...