It’s the wedding of Estelle Livingstone, Kate Ivory’s agent, to Peter Hume, second-hand book dealer: a lavish, fashionable affair where the booze flows as freely as the gossip and backbiting, until the elegant proceedings are interrupted by a drunken accusation against one of the wedding party.
Kate Ivory is writing her breakthrough novel, and her agent’s support and encouragement are essential. But, just a few weeks after her return from honeymoon, Estelle goes missing. Her husband hides away, refusing to speak to Kate, let alone to the police. Where is Estelle? Has her disappearance something to do with the demented authors who have been stalking her, brandishing unpublishable manuscripts? Is Peter an unscrupulous cheat whose past is catching up with him? What about Peter’s dodgy brother, Myles, and Myles’s high-maintenance wife, Cathy? If Kate is to complete her novel and get on with the rest of her life she has to find Estelle. Then Craig Jefferson, an old friend of Kate’s partner, makes a timely entrance on to the scene and seems to fancy a bit of sleuthing himself.
This is the final entry in Kate Ivory’s series of mysteries, and faithful readers will be hoping for the answers to a number of long-running questions. Will Kate complete her breakthrough novel? Will she ever settle down with Jon, or another of her long-suffering men friends? Will she find the redoubtable Estelle and receive the encouragement she needs? What is happening to her mother, Roz? And how does Jon deal with Kate’s incorrigible curiosity over other people’s problems?
Some, if not all, of these questions are addressed in this, the last in the series, but the answers are not always quite what the reader is expecting.
Kate Ivory is writing her breakthrough novel, and her agent’s support and encouragement are essential. But, just a few weeks after her return from honeymoon, Estelle goes missing. Her husband hides away, refusing to speak to Kate, let alone to the police. Where is Estelle? Has her disappearance something to do with the demented authors who have been stalking her, brandishing unpublishable manuscripts? Is Peter an unscrupulous cheat whose past is catching up with him? What about Peter’s dodgy brother, Myles, and Myles’s high-maintenance wife, Cathy? If Kate is to complete her novel and get on with the rest of her life she has to find Estelle. Then Craig Jefferson, an old friend of Kate’s partner, makes a timely entrance on to the scene and seems to fancy a bit of sleuthing himself.
This is the final entry in Kate Ivory’s series of mysteries, and faithful readers will be hoping for the answers to a number of long-running questions. Will Kate complete her breakthrough novel? Will she ever settle down with Jon, or another of her long-suffering men friends? Will she find the redoubtable Estelle and receive the encouragement she needs? What is happening to her mother, Roz? And how does Jon deal with Kate’s incorrigible curiosity over other people’s problems?
Some, if not all, of these questions are addressed in this, the last in the series, but the answers are not always quite what the reader is expecting.
