Who Lives By the Sword

In a sun-splashed seaport on the Italian Riviera, a timid curio shop owner lives a double life. By day he sells dusty clocks and fifteenth-century weapons to tourists; by night he watches harbor traffic for an intelligence network and pockets the extra money his extravagant young wife demands.

When a nondescript courier summons him to a decaying villa, the shopkeeper learns that a rival network has sent a professional assassin to eliminate him. His own superiors offer protection—but only if he assists a smug, cold-blooded specialist in arranging a fatal “accident” for the enemy agent.

Trapped between terror and a desperate need for security, the mild man is drawn into a nightmarish game of surveillance, deception, and violence along cliff-hanging roads and cobbled streets. As the plan unfolds, he knows he is in over his head—but does he have the nerve to refuse, and what will survival cost him?