Widow Maker by
Frances Galleymore
hbk out May 99
Published by Orion
at £16.99
Frances Galleymore is new to me. There are four previous novels, and if the Widow Maker is anything to go by, they should be worth reading. The novel gets off to a cracking pace when Zoe Maker is woken in the middle of the night by a phone call from her husband. He's in desperate trouble, and Zoe rushes through the night to his aid. But she is too late to help him.
The widow, Maker, thus has to run his business, a fast-expanding security company; control and care for her teenage daughter, Caro, and find out who killed Charlie and avenge his death.
This is a suspense novel. Charlie was very specific in that last phone call to his wife. 'Don't trust,' he told her. 'No one. Promise. Promise.' The result of this warning, of course, is that whoever we are introduced to during the course of the next 290 pages, is a suspect.
This is clever stuff, and Ms Galleymore is good at it. There was more than one time when I felt she was overdoing it, retarding the plot too much, losing the pace of the narrative. But it wasn't so bad it made me put the book down. Every time I had a spare moment I was reaching for it.
Charlie Maker is not the only person to be killed. His friend, Gill Tarpon was disposed of earlier, and a few chapters in a young boy who was a witness to Charlie's death is found strangled under the bridges near Kings Cross.
The plot is further complicated by the realization that there are trade rivals in the picture, and that one or the other of them is waging a war of dirty tricks.
It was all very enjoyable until the last couple of chapters. There were no surprises left by that time, and I'd had my fill of the trials and tribulations of the main character. I think we both need a holiday.
(
John Baker
- author of the Sam Turner mysteries and one of Britain's most highly acclaimed writers)
