A Matter of Honour

A Matter of Honour is a novel by the English writer Jeffrey Archer, first published in 1986. It topped the bestseller lists that year and was issued in paperback in 1987.

Adam Scott is the son of a disgraced British colonel who died in 1966, and what he inherits is a letter that his father had never opened himself. Adam is afraid that opening it can only bring more disgrace on the family, and he opens it anyway.

What the letter leads him to is a safe deposit box in Switzerland and, inside it, a Russian Orthodox icon made long ago for the tsars. During the 1930s it had come into the possession of Hermann Goring, and after the war Goring wanted Scott's father, one of his jailers at Nuremberg, to have it.

That was a token of thanks and also an insurance policy, because Goring knew that Scott's father would be blamed for his suicide before execution. What Goring did not know was that the icon contained a secret codice about the Alaska Purchase, which makes it worth a great deal to more than one government.