Hand In Glove
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Tristram Abberley was an acclaimed English poet of the 1930s whose legendary reputation was sealed when he died fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Nearly fifty years later, his sister Beatrix is brutally murdered in her seaside cottage.
Her family are stunned by the crime - especially Beatrix's niece, Charlotte Ladram. But Charlotte has little time to mourn her aunt as fifty years of secrets begin to unravel. Beatrix is the victim of a dark conspiracy, one that her loved ones are powerless to defeat. A harrowing quest for answers begins, one that uncovers a shocking tale of wartime greed and treachery, and a vendetta seemingly without end...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stiff, archaic dialogue and an overreaching plot that snakes from contemporary England back to the Spanish Civil War makes this lengthy novel of psychological suspense by Goddard ( Debt of Dishonor ) slow going. The action begins with the murder of 85-year-old Beatrix Abberley, canny sister of England's poet-warrior Tristam Abberley, who died a hero in the Spanish Civil War. On Beatrix's death, four packets of letters revealing a predictable hoax, some depressing truths and a treasure buried since the 1930s are mailed to persons unknown. The dead woman's schoolmarmish niece Charlotte Ladram and bumbling Derek Fairfax, upright brother of an ex-con framed for the murder, set themselves to solving the puzzle of these events. With cardboard characters--a womanizing American biographer, mousy Charlotte and her brassy sister-in-law Ursula--and a string of handy coincidences, Goddard, who signals nearly every twist his story takes, delivers a mediocre effort. Paperback rights to Pocket.
