Flash Point

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 and undoubtedly written during the last days of the American Watergate scandal. Although none of the events in the book directly parallel those of Watergate, it begins with a banal legal matter and then escalates into a government cover-up and national scandal. The American edition has an apparent subtitle shown only on its 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 less a standard novel of suspense than a political thriller about the amorality and subsequent lethal reactions of those in the highest government positions when confronted by seemingly trivial events that blossom uncontrollably into perceived challenges to their positions.