It’s probable that with Warner Bros due to commence filming of The Freedom Trap, which had now been renamed The Mackintosh Man, by September, Bagley’s US publisher Doubleday had managed to persuade the author to withdraw Because Salton Died in favour of writing a novel similar to the impending film, in order that the two might be marketed together. So the typescript was returned to Bagley and was put aside in favour of other projects.

The following month Bagley and his wife embarked on a tour of Scandinavia, first visiting Strängnäs in Sweden to stay with a close personal friend, Iwan Hedman aka Iwan Morelius. Morelius (1931–2012), a captain in the Swedish army, founded the Swedish crime fiction publication DAST Magazine in 1967 and had started to correspond with Bagley in 1969. On this particular visit Bagley conducted a book signing at the local bookshop and also visited a publishing house in Stockholm before travelling on to Drammen in Norway where he met Mona Røkke who, then police superintendent for Drammen, later went into local politics and became a Member of the Norwegian Parliament. Drammen was to feature in Bagley’s next novel and with the bout of writer’s block well and truly behind him he commenced work on his new novel, The Tightrope Men (London: Collins, 1973), sending the final draft of the novel to his publishers on 29 September 1972. His close friend Iwan Morelius was to later feature as a character in his 1977 novel The Enemy.

Following her husband’s death in 1983, Joan Bagley completed and oversaw the posthumous publication of two of his novels – Night of Error and Juggernaut. In the latter months of 1997 she took up the offer made to her husband by Howard Gotlieb 33 years earlier and donated his papers to Boston University, where they now rest in an archive of unparalleled diversity and richness. Joan had been an integral part of Desmond Bagley’s work from the very first novel until the last, faithfully preserving his literary legacy until her own death on 30 June 1999.

Because Salton Died remained set aside and was thought lost until discovered in Bagley’s personal papers in May 2017. The author had indicated on his typescript that if the publishers could think of a better title they should go ahead.

Well, they did … Domino Island.

Philip Eastwood

DESMOND BAGLEY

‘Bagley is one of the best.’

The Times

HIGH CITADEL

When Tim O’Hara’s plane is hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes, his troubles are only beginning. A heavily armed group of communist soldiers intent on killing one of his passengers – an influential political figure – have orders to leave no survivors. Isolated in the biting cold of the Andes, O’Hara’s party must fight for their lives with only the most primitive weapons …

LANDSLIDE