First published in England in 1984 by Martin Secker & Warburg:
(The Amazon product page seems to confuse this in part with Colin Watson's Flaxborough 'Blue Monday' and lists Watson's author bio, but the book is Dunne's.)
Blue Murder (A Classic Cold War Thriller) by Colin Dunne
“Our line of work? If it was a department store, you’d go straight through Military, turn left at Espionage, and you’d find us on the right, just past Crime.”
Meet Yokel and Kit, the two most maverick spies ever to work on the payroll of British intelligence. Members of the Unit, a top-secret, black-ops team working behind the most dangerous lines of the Cold War, they are sent into East Germany, at the height of mid-1980s hostilities between the mighty powers of East and West.
But the mission goes horribly wrong and they find themselves thrown into a conspiracy of terrifying proportions. Abandoned and alone, they must fight, not only to finish the job, but also for their own survival.
Stretching from Germany's Harz Mountains, to the brothels of Bangkok, to the mean streets of London's East End, the two men race into a hair-raising global journey that will keep the reader gripped from the first page to the last.
Colin Dunne’s classic Cold War thriller is a master-class of light-touch thriller writing that combines the pace and tension of Jack Higgins with the wit and intelligence of Len Deighton and the sophistication and style of Ian Fleming.
Colin Dunne’s writing has been widely praised.
'Cleverly plotted and genuinely witty’ (Jack Higgins)
‘Crisp characters, amazing pace, every low punch in the book on target’
(The Sunday Times)