Reviewed by Fran Hartley
Nurse Lora Spencer is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant during the morning rush hour on Wellington’s Lambton Quay. A freelance journalist, Adam Adair, finds himself holding the dying woman in his arms. Haunted by the experience, Adair decides to investigate. Lora’s relatives and associates can only tell him so much and, like her ex-boyfriend, may have something to hide. The task isn’t helped by the struggle Adair is having with his feelings for housemate Hailey Wilson, also a nurse at Wellington Hospital.
Who has links to the crime, and will it be solved?
Meanwhile, in fashionable Paraparaumu Beach, socialite Cynthia Blair is being stalked. Unwilling to reveal her ordeal to her husband, or anyone else, she fears her young son will be taken from her.
This paperback book is an easy to read murder mystery “whodunnit”. Suitable for over 18 years of age as some details of violent acts are quite graphic. However, these are necessary for the story and a mature reader will understand this.
The story begins with a young freelance journalist, Adam Adair, walking to work along Lambton Quay in Wellington, when a woman collides with him and overbalances. Adam eases her fall and in the process of trying to sit her up, a bystander notices that she is bleeding from a knife wound in her back. The woman fixes her eyes on Adam with a desperate, pleading look before losing consciousness. Adam soon learns that she dies in the ambulance before reaching hospital.
Adam is haunted by the young woman's desperate attempt at communication and decides to investigate, as the Police do not seem to be making any progress, putting him and his closest friend in great danger.
Meanwhile, fashionable socialite, Cynthia, is being stalked, but hides her fears as she has a great secret that she cannot risk being uncovered. The plot thickens as some unsavoury characters are introduced.
The author keeps the reader wondering until the end of the story as events start to link in with each other, highlighting the stark differences of behaviour and attitudes between social classes. The author has the ability to make the characters to become quickly familiar to the reader which makes for easy reading.
The author also has a great knowledge of the City of Wellington and describes the locations of events very well, so even a reader not familiar with the city would get a good picture of Wellington and environs. If I had any criticism at all, it would be that occasionally the author slightly overdoes the details of road and area names.
Altogether an enjoyable quick read book with a good story line, written in a fairly simplistic manner which makes it the easy read that it is. I would recommend this book as a “put your feet up” holiday read.
This review was first published in FlaxFlower reviews, which focuses on in-depth reviews of New Zealand books of all kinds, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of Flaxflower founder and editor Bronwyn Elsmore.
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