The Man With No Face is a standalone mystery/espionage novel by the well-known Scottish author Peter May. It was first published in 1981 under the title Hidden Faces.
As the novel opens, Neil Bannerman, a journalist with Scotland’s Daily Standard, is exiled to Brussels by his angry editor. His assignment is to cover the political havoc going on in the government there. His contact in Brussels, another journalist, is found dead a few days after Bannerman arrives, along with a British Cabinet minister. The police believe they shot each other and no other party was involved. Their proof? The journalist was covering the scandal the minister was named in and had been pressuring him to publicly confess.
But the journalist’s daughter, Tania, an autistic 12-year-old who doesn’t speak, was hiding in the front hall closet when she heard her father arguing with the cabinet minister, and the very loud bangs which followed. Someone ran past the closet door, which was ajar, and quietly closed the front door as he fled. Tania saw it all from her vantage point. A gifted artist, Tania draws a picture of the man she saw fleeing the crime scene. The police believe she is an unbalanced child and don’t give credence to her drawing. The professional assassin who ran out the front door does. Here the chase begins.
Review by Mary Ellen Wilson, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
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