The Fanatics (The Commander Allan Dice Books Book 1)

The Fanatics (A Political Hostage Thriller)
‘A really good thriller writer…’
The Daily Telegraph

With instructions to assassinate the two leaders of the new radical CDP (Christian Democrat Party), a terrorist unit—a man and a girl—bring sudden death and horror to London.

After gunning down one CDP leader in his Westminster flat the pair set off to execute another, the Reverend Paul Carpenter, in Hampstead. The appearance of the police compels the pair to avoid capture by seizing this leader and his secretary, and with their hostages, barricading themselves into Carpenter’s flat.

There follows a crescendo of tension. On the one hand there are the young terrorists, oddly calm and manifestly without scruples; on the other, there is Commander Allan Dice, in charge of the police operation—an aloof, private man with strong principles and a deep misery over his wife’s infidelity. Dice, on whom the whole responsibility rests, is all too aware of the appalling threat to the hostages’ lives and the need to maintain a ruthless pressure of doubt in the terrorists’ minds.

And beyond the immediate siege with its vast deployment of police resources there are frenzied repercussions in the corridors of Whitehall and the Kremlin.

The violent and unforeseen climax tests all of Dice’s and the hostages’ courage and moral strength.

The Fanatics is the first of the Commander Allan Dice books.


Press comment on the second of the Commander Allan Dice books, The Washermen

‘Zippy, intricate Chinese puzzle laid out with high laconic skill … very strong on sinister rituals, seamy metropolitan locations and gut-churning beastliness.’
‘Intricate and skilful…Hill is more than a find.’
The Sunday Times

‘Very clever, very nasty.’
Marghanita Laski, The Listener

‘Peter Hill has done it again—a fast-moving, action-packed thriller involving the secret service, the police and underworld criminals.’
Coventry Evening Telegraph

Peter Hill is an author and playwright who regularly wrote for many top-rated British television series including, ‘Special Branch’, ‘Z Cars’, ‘Callan’, ‘The Bill’, ‘The Sweeney’, ‘Crown Court’, ‘Public Eye’, and ‘New Scotland Yard’.

As a novelist he wrote the highly successful Staunton and Wyndsor series of British police detective novels, The Hunters, The Liars, The Enthusiast and The Savages. Each of these is a stand-alone novel, with the same two major protagonists, they are part of a series, not an ongoing serial so could be read in any order. They are set in various locations in Britain.

These books were previously published worldwide by major publishing houses in hard and paperback editions in the 1970s and are now offered as eBooks.

Press comments on the author’s other books

‘To follow… the brilliantly inspired tracking of Hill’s two detectives is a joy apart from the brainteasing pleasure of accepting the author’s challenge to identify the murderer.’
London Evening News

‘Exceptionally well told, with satisfying outcome.’
Columbus Sunday Dispatch

‘Lies, gossip, jealousy and a generous serving of bedroom undercover work fail to deter two of Scotland Yard’s finest in this entertaining mystery with an extra twist or two ...or three.’
Pittsburgh Press

‘Peter Hill does a fine job with character, plot, atmosphere and suspense.’
Publishers Weekly

‘… a pair of attractive investigators—the young and aristocratic Leo Wyndsor and the slow-moving but smart veteran Bob Staunton. The case takes them to Cornwall, where a man has been murdered and hung on an old gibbet ... All this is very agreeable, especially in Mr. Hill’s smooth and often sympathetic telling.’
New York Times

‘I’d like to see Messrs. Staunton and Wyndsor in more books. They’re a lot of fun—and they’re good detectives.’
Daily Press Newport News, Virginia

‘Bizarre murder and a full, meaty, thoroughly absorbing account of the investigation with sex spicily sandwiched in.’
The Times

‘A lively sample of the