Flash Point (Gilbert novel)
Flash Point is a 1974 novel by the British author Michael Gilbert published in England by Hodder and Stoughton and in the United States by Harper & Row. It was Gilbert's 17th novel. The American edition has an apparent subtitle shown only on the copyright page: "A Harper Novel of Law and Lawlessness". Like a number of other works by Gilbert and his near contemporaries Victor Canning and Ross Thomas, it is basically a political thriller about the amorality and deadly reactions of those in high government positions when confronted by seemingly trivial events that escalate into perceived challenges to their positions.
As one of Gilbert's editors said after his death in 2006, "He's not a hard-boiled writer in the classic sense, but there is a hard edge to him, a feeling within his work that not all of society is rational, that virtue is not always rewarded.".[1] Such is the case here.