Cost Price


Cost Price is a 1949 adventure novel by the English author Dornford Yates, the eighth and last in his 'Chandos' thriller series. It serves as a sequel to his 1939 novel Safe Custody.
The book was published in the US under the title The Laughing Bacchante.

Plot

Chandos and Mansel recover the gems that had in Safe Custody been left in a walled-up chamber of Hohenems castle.

Background

The book was published soon after Mercer had completed the building of a new house in Southern Rhodesia to which he and his wife had retired. This was his replacement for "Cockade" in Southern France which was empty and still a worry to him.

Critical reception

Mercer's biographer AJ Smithers, writing in 1982, expressed admiration for the way in which Mercer marshalled his characters. By continually bringing back old friends who give the impression of being one big family, his readers feel almost honorary family members themselves.