Amateur versus professional crooks.

A couple of Australian tourists in Russia rescue an old man from drowning, and in gratitude he tells them of an ancestor of his who, during the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution, attacked a train and stole some icons that had been stolen by the Bolsheviks from the Russian royal family. One of the Australians is of Russian ancestry, and the old man tells him that if he can find the hidden icons, he can keep them, and gives him one of his own family icons, which is said to hold the key to the secret location of the icons.

The tourists, an accountant and a dentist, return to Australia and when the believe they may have found a clue to the location of the icons, decide, after many arguments, to return to Russia and look for them. Their arguments continue throughout the book. First one is keen on the project, and the other is lukewarm, and then the one who was lukewarm becomes keen and the other is sceptical.

Their enterprise is of dubious legality and morality, and thus they need to keep it secret, but they take it in turns to boast about it and to warn against doing so. First one says too much, and the other warns him not to, and then they exchange roles. As a result of this, several others, including professional criminals, become aware of the treasure hunt, and the two amateurs find themselves in serious trouble and great danger again and again, usually because one has done something foolish that the other has warned them against.

The battle between the amateurs and the professionals goes right through the book, and I thought the theme was a little overplayed. The protagonists never seemed to learn from their mistakes, and went on making the same mistakes over and over again, and getting into similar trouble over and over again. One would take precautions that the other would get angry about, or one would neglect precautions that the other would get angry about.