Sour Grapes
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Now a full-time mother and bestselling writer, Willow King is content to leave crime-solving to her police chief husband. Yet she can’t resist a case involving Andrew Lutterworth, accused of a fatal hit-and-run that landed him in prison for manslaughter. His wife suspects he was forced to confess and was incarcerated on purely circumstantial evidence.
But what could motivate a man to admit to a crime he did not commit a willingly go to jail because of it? The truth behind the puzzle is as dark and perplexing as the human psyche—and as tragic as the half-truths of self-deception that lead to murder.
‘Elegant . . .deeply satisfying.’ Library Journal
‘With her deft characterizations and intriguing puzzle, Cooper provides a . . . fine British cozy.’ Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From a simple but intriguing academic premise, Cooper (Rotten Apples, etc.) constructs an engaging puzzle based on modern police science for her seventh Willow King mystery. English amateur sleuth and romance novelist Willow helps her wealthy friend Emma who, at work on her postgraduate criminology degree, is trying to find original material about lie-detectors and their usefulness in determining a suspect's guilt. What she seeks is a definitive miscarriage of justice. Willow, married to a police superintendent, uses her connections to find the odd case of Andrew Lutterworth. Convicted of killing a mother and baby in a car accident, Lutterworth at first denies and then confesses to the crime. But at the trial, he pleads innocent. When Emma first hooks him up to the polygraph, she is led to believe he is trying to hide something, although not necessarily his role in the crime. Digging into the case, Willow and Emma learn that Lutterworth's only child died unexpectedly of necrotising fasciitis, after which his wife apparently went mad. Further lie-detector tests on Lutterworth reveal his long-hidden secret and the reason for his contradictory behavior. In the meantime, Emma strengthens her friendship with Willow. With her deft characterizations and intriguing puzzle, Cooper provides a representative example of a fine British cozy.
