Wow, "The Silver Pigs" was the first Falco novel. ("Silver Pigs" in the US). Without giving too much away, our hero has to find out who is embezzling silver ingots from the treasury.

Ms. Davis informs us elsewhere on her website that they are called pigs because when the molten silver is being cast into ingots it runs through a channel with ingot-shaped moulds hanging from it like a series of san serif T's run together, where the crosspiece represents the main channel and the upward strokes are the ingots. This reminded people of piglets being suckled from a sow.

As for the great corn controversy, Ms. Davis quotes the OED as saying: 3 The seed of the cereal or farinaceous plants; grain. (Locally the seed is understood to denote the leading crop of the district; hence in England corn = wheat, in Scotland = oats, in US, as in Indian corn = maize)

Bingley

Bingley