THE BARON and The Chinese Puzzle by John Creasey

 This is one of my ancient paperbacks and there is no note as to when or where I got the book.

It's a slim novel and I skimmed from page 134 to the end of the novel (last page 175) on Fr 8/11/23.

"...follows the powder trail of an explosive situation with international fallout..." (on the cover).

On the back of the book:

"When former jewel thief John Mannering decided to attend the priceless Oriental exhibition he did not realize that someone was willing to kill to keep THE BARON away. He could not anticipate the political maelstrom, the misguided patriot, and the sinister plot which would trap THE BARON IN THE CHINESE PUZZLE."

The novel was published in 1951 and was John Creasey's first book. 

From the author's page at Wikipedia:

"John Creasey MBE (17 September 1908 – 9 June 1973) was an English crime writer, also writing science fiction, romance and western novels, who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms.

He created several characters who are now famous, such as The Toff (The Honourable Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Doctor Emmanuel Cellini and Doctor Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. The most popular of these was Gideon of Scotland Yard, who was the basis for the television series Gideon's Way and for the John Ford movie Gideon's Day (1958). The Baron character was also made into a 1960s TV series starring Steve Forrest as The Baron." 

This was not a bad novel, but I just ran out of gas on it. John Creasey seems to be the poster child for 'hack writer' in that he had dozens of pen names and he would write in any genre imaginable. And obviously the reason for this is money. Nothing wrong with a guy trying to make a living, but this book just seemed to be 'connecting the dots'. Not bad, but not in the least bit inspiring.