Though sited in Torquay, this novel owes nothing to the shades of Agatha Christie, but is a good whodunnit with a competent twist in the tail. Hilary Bonner is a former show-biz journalist from The Mail and Mirror, with a substantial track record of novels and non-fiction.
This story revolves around John Kelly, a former Fleet Street reporter who fell from grace years ago due to drink and drugs. He is relatively content with his modest reincarnation on a local Devon paper, until a famous pop star is murdered during an apparent burglary at his mansion - when his wife Angel stabs the intruder to death. Kelly had dealings with Angel years before and is fascinated, then obsessed by her. The plot thickens and he slides back into his old disreputable ways, to the disgust of his lady-friend and his son.
The writing is excellent and the story-line tight, without too many characters, which sometimes clog up a good plot. There are some rather uninhibited descriptions of sexual activity, perhaps to a degree that nice ladies like Hilary Bonner shouldn't know about! At least they are germane to the story, rather than the all-too-common gratuitous smut..
It is an intelligent book, certainly not action-packed, but believable and not reliant on the convenient coicidences that mar many a story.


( Bernard Knight ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
New Books by Hilary Bonner at Amazon.co.uk
Secondhand and Out of Print Books by Hilary Bonner at Alibris.com

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