One sunny August afternoon, the residents of Cedar Close throw their annual summer barbecue. Children play in the cherry-tree lined street, tables are laden with food, and the wine is flowing. For Laurie Mills, it’s her first time meeting the neighbours. And it’s the first time she discovers her husband Robert is having an affair.
Cedar Close has always been a nice place to live – a quiet suburban street where everyone looks out for one another and bad things don’t happen.
Until late one evening, when Robert Mills is found dead in his bedroom.
Downstairs, in their beautiful kitchen, his wife Laurie sits alone in the dark with her head in her hands.
She can’t remember the last few hours, but she knows she didn’t kill Robert.
The trouble is, no-one believes her…
My review
This is the second book in the DI Riley series, but it can easily be read as a standalone. I did not have the feeling that I missed something in order to pick this one up, but I do missed reading about DI Riley (but that is my own fault by not reading the first book and has nothing to do with the author not giving enough information), because you just have to love him. He is kind, compassionate, funny and stubborn by sticking to what he believes in and looking beyond first impressions. He might become my favourtie DI.
There are two ways of writing a crime book. You can keep the identity of the culprit hidden until the end or you can reveal it earlier on and give them a more active part in the story. I like both ways. I am not going to give away how this story was structured. That is for you to find out for yourself.
The author takes us on a journey by intertwining past and present into a fabulous book. She shows us that although we think we know someone we never really know them at all.
The story is a mixture of a police procedural and psychology that kept me very entertained. 4 stars.
Thank you, Anna-Lou Weatherley, Bookouture and Netgalley.
About the author
Anna-Lou began her career as a dancer but a moped accident in Ibiza put paid to those aspirations and so she went back to her first and one true love – writing! She re-trained as a journalist, specialising mainly in women’s interest and celebrity, becoming the Editor of J-17 and Smash Hits as well as writing for a host of women’s magazines.
Anna-Lou has written three Adult Fiction titles – Vengeful Wives and Wicked Wives, both published by Avon in the UK and Bookouture in the US and Canada and Pleasure Island published by Bookouture.
To find out more about Anna’s novels, go to https://www.facebook.com/annalouweatherleyauthor/ or follow https://twitter.com/annaloulondon on Twitter.
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