Jacob Meaney makes so little money as a translator that his girlfriend has given up on him. Then Eloise, an Australian digital marketer, appears out of the blue, offering him unheard of sums for a couple of weeks’ work.

A private plane and helicopter take him to a showcase villa in Carinthia and all the luxury he could ever want. Here he meets the owner of the house Bondarenko. Unwillingly Jacob has become part of an organised crime conspiracy, held captive there by armed guards.

His task is to interpret between Hindi, Russian and English during Zoom calls with Nazim, an Indian criminal whose gang have taken over the manufacture and distribution network of the wonder fertility drug that Bondarenko has been selling on the internet. It becomes clear to Jacob that his employer is in far deeper and more dangerously than he realises. The gang’s plan is to take over the entire operation by any means.

The villa has become a lethal gilded prison to Jacob and Vlada, the maid who’s a trafficked worker. When Nazim finally strikes which side will Jacob take to survive?

Fast-moving, tense, glamorous and witty The Conspirators is G. W. Shaw’s follow-up to Dead Rich (‘A great book by a fabulous writer’ Steve Cavanagh) and shows that he’s a master of the gripping international thriller genre.