Sam is well known in crime reading circles for her trilogy of books featuring young Garda Cat Connolly. This book represents a new departure as we find out right from the first chapter: no murder to be solved, instead young jewellery designer Lily Power answers her door to find her brother near to suicide having been cheated out of the family business by the ignominious Edward Croxley.
Vittoria Devine has problems of a different kind. Her philandering husband has got his latest mistress pregnant and she fears he will leave her. Before marriage, she foolishly signed a prenup that will leave her with almost nothing.
The two women meet by chance on a flight, and, by the time they land, their lives have become intrinsically twined. By working together, they seek to deal with their man problems in ways they could not on their own.
This is Sam Blake, so this is not a simple domestic narrative. The plot thickens, then thickens again. The danger grows intense and it becomes clear that one of the women does not have the full story on what is going on.
I loved the way the action becomes intense and the relationship between these two women, distant and secretive as it must be, nevertheless grows intense, almost intimate, as the strands of the plan come into effect. There’s a very satisfying resolution to the story, and excitingly there’s a tag at the end which suggests we have not seen the last of these strong heroines.
Go buy it, you won’t regret it. Exciting, cleverly plotted with larger than life characters. Great.