Mr Stephen J Howells

Operation Sanctify Mr Stephen J Howells

Bill works for a British government agency in a freelance capacity doing long term surveillance operations but is currently without a portfolio. The call to action is a welcome one but he is unaware that the subject matter will awake in him his old love of cycling and a new love for Italy. After a pleasant trip across France where he takes to the Romany lifestyle, he gradually integrates into Lombardia and the cycling scene there. Bill makes friends that provide his cover and others that betray him. His friendship with Bruno, a doctor, finally gives him a second opinion on the dark world of performance enhancing products and he finds there is no black and white in professional sport. He tracks a gangs influence from cycling to football while they watch him. Despite losing trust in his boss who he privately refers to as 'Mr Big', together, they manage to draw the criminal organisation into their web and the net is closed in a tense rendezvous in Verona. The book style is deliberately anecdotal, with emphasis on the places Bill passes through and the local people. Bill's frailties, doubts, opinions and beliefs are revealed as he reacts to the various people he interacts with and the stresses the operation puts on both them and himself.