A Brilliant Coup

Early in the morning in Copenhagen a petrol tanker, hijacked by a young girl, is set on fire, melting the high-voltage cables carrying electricity, blacking out Copenhagen and causing total chaos on the roads.

The resultant confusion is used by a motorcycle gang who carry out seven bank robberies and escape with the money. The power failure also means that a passenger plane from the Soviet fails to make a stopover at Copenhagen Airport and flies directly to Heathrow, arriving an hour ahead of schedule...

Meanwhile, on Heathrow conditions are also chaotic. A threat to bomb Terminal 2 makes it necessary for the police to X-ray passengers' luggage. This could be disastrous for one of the Russians on the place, a diamond courier from the Soviet Almaz concern...

In Denmark, the police struggle to clear up the bank robberies without knowing that they are simply a part of the world's biggest diamond theft masterminded by the defectors... A Brilliant Coup indeed!

Søren Jakobsen is an award-winning Danish journalist and author. Together with his colleague Jakob Andersen, Søren Jakobsen won the Cavling Prize in 1977 for a series of articles about the Defense Intelligence Service's illegal use of espionage. In 1981 he received the Poe Prize for his crime novel "A Brilliant Coup". In addition to his critically acclaimed detective stories, Søren Jakobsen has published the documentary books "Danish Dynasties" (2007) and "The LEGO Legacy" (2008).