Book excerpt: 'Before there was James Bond, there was Gregory Sallust.' Tina Rosenberg, Salon.com The Scarlet Imposter is the second in Dennis Wheatley's bestselling Gregory Sallust series featuring the debonair spy Gregory Sallust, a forerunner to Ian Fleming's James Bond. It is 1940, and Gregory Sallust is tasked with contacting an anti-Nazi organisation in Germany who are preparing to overthrow Hitler and sue for peace. In a series of clever disguises, Sallust masquerades his way through challenge after challenge, surrounded by some of the most vicious and determined Nazis of the Third Reich. A page-turning thriller packed with action, menace and a dangerous romance, The Scarlet Impostor is classic Wheatley - politically charged and heroically rendered from the first page. "Adventures with the Gestapo, assorted plotters and a beautiful woman of mystery will keep your eyes glued to it for 450 pages!" - New York Herald Tribune