Ross Thomas: The Highbinders (USA 2012)

From the Publisher:
St. Ives goes to London on a job for the least trustworthy con artist he knows
Philip St. Ives has only been in the pub a few minutes before he realizes his whiskey is drugged. Instantly sick, he's vomiting on the sidewalk when the muggers appear. He fights as best he can in his drugged state, and only when he feels the handcuffs does he realize his assailants aren't muggers -- they're cops.

He wakes in a dingy cell to the knowledge that English Eddie Apex has pulled a fast one on him. English Eddie is not English, but talks with a British accent that once made him New York's most refined con artist. In retirement and living in London, he had hired St. Ives -- a professional mediator between crooks and their marks -- to come to England to help him recover a stolen painting. The drugged whiskey won't be the last surprise St. Ives gets in Blighty, and the police won't be the only ones who try to cause him pain.

Ross Thomas: The Highbinders. A Philip St. Ives Mystery. Mysterious Press / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781453259665 (July, 2012), 1 MB (ca. 224 p.), $9.99 (?).

Ross Thomas writing as Oliver Bleeck: The Highbinders (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
What a lovely bunch! From as far away as Tangier and Detroit they'd found their way to London: a nasty 6' 7 gambler who was Princeton by way of Vegas, a purveyor of goods and services who looked like Gandhi and was called Tic-Toc, and Eddie Apex, who was born Eddie Apanasewiez and was probably the best international con man around.

And then there was St. Ives, who joined the rogue's gallery in search of a stolen antique sword that belonged to a down-on-his-luck aristocrat and just happened to have a hilt that included an uncut diamond the size of an egg. But by the time St. Ives had punched out a bobby, uncovered two murders, and heard dozens of lies, it wasn't the handie end of things he was worried about. At least one of the grifters was pulling a huge double cross, and St. Ives, professional go-between, was standing precisely in the way...

Ross Thomas writing as Oliver Bleeck: The Highbinders. Mysterious Press / Warner Books, ISBN: 0446401781 (August, 1993), $4.99.

Ross Thomas writing as Oliver Bleeck: The Highbinders (USA 1984)

From the Publisher:
"Highbinders" are professional con men, and troubleshooter Philip St. Ives crosses their path in a deadly game of deception and murder in London when he accepts an offer to recover the famous sword of St. Louis, which has been stolen (or has it?) from its owners and is being ransomed.

"Must be accorded the palm as the best political-suspense-story writer going." -- Houston Post
"Rates the highest marks... a genuine pro. -- Boston Globe
"A smooth, contemporary novelist." -- LibraryJournal

Ross Thomas writing as Oliver Bleeck: The Highbinders. New York: Harper & Row, 1984, ISBN: 0060807024, Perennial Library P702, 217 p., $2.95.