Awaiting insurance clearance from an injury, Annie Raymond, PI, is dragged up to Yorkshire from an operation turning sour in London. The Thompson sisters, owners of the first agency Annie worked for, have requested her assistance and paid her company a hefty sweetner - except they didn't request her or pay the upfront fee, Vince Sleeman did, or so the paperwork purports, and who believes that? Sleeman might be distantly related to the Thompsons but his path wanders way beyond the Law, and he hates Annie's guts for highlighting his endeavors years before. Besides, he's in a hospital bed too ill to even hold a pen. Yet something's going on that the sisters are keeping close. And what about Sleeman's nephew, Carl? Is he as dozy as he was eight years previously, or is he flexing his muscles and using Annie to engineer a family coup?

Add in horse boxes, drugged children and a false trail a mile wide, and despite wanting to leave the tetchy family to its own devices, Annie has to pick her way through a minefield of internecine double-dealing to protect a lone figure stranded in a strange land.

This fast-moving story starts as a myriad of seemingly unrelated incidents, but as the novel progresses red herrings turn into sharks to metamorphose into piranhas. Don't blink or you'll miss something vital. This complex story will keep you guessing until the end. More than worth the read.
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