‘Lady's Slipper’ by Alison Gray

Published by Alison Gray,
4 September 2015.

The story opens with a woman named Netty recounting spending time with an Albert Croft who is about to be released after spending 20 years in prison and who Netty believes to be innocent. How they were in the forest sleeping rough when they heard screams and on investigating found a woman's body. Netty thought she saw someone watching from the undergrowth, panicked and ran away.

In the present and still sleeping rough, as she is drifting off to sleep whilst having these recollections, she is murdered and in a similar way to the woman Cathy whose body they had found all those years ago.

The daughter of the woman Cathy who Albert was accused of murdering threatens to kill him on his release, then she goes missing. This is more worrying still as she suffers from epilepsy and memory loss.

D.C. Abigail Foulkes is put in charge of the case, but as her partner was killed earlier in the year it affects how she deals with Cathy and Netty's murders.

Complications arise when the police discover Cathy and her siblings were adopted leading to surprising revelations.

The story hinges around finding the truth as to whether Albert did actually commit the murder or can the real perpetrator still be at large? If so who will they kill next to cover up the real truth?

This story is gripping right from the first chapter and really kept me guessing throughout. First along with the police, I was sure one person was responsible and as other people were suspected one by one, I was equally convinced. A book with some good twists and many a red herring!

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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Alison Gray was born and grew up in Scotland, during the 1960s and 1970s. She now lives in the north-east of England and has lived there since the 1980s. Out of the Tower her first novel, was shortlisted for the Constable Trophy 1992, a competition for the best unpublished novel by a writer from the north of England. It was described by the judges as powerful, strong, heartfelt, admirably tense, a work of great promise and individuality, carefully thought out and with subtlety, deftness and poetic nature of idiom. Her second novel, Hibiscus Fruit, the first in a crime series featuring the character DS Abigail Foulkes and based in Newcastle upon Tyne and the Aegean, will be published on 12 September 2014.
                       

Tricia Chappell. I have a great love of books and reading, especially crime and thrillers. I play the occasional game of golf  (when I am not reading). My great love is cruising especially to far flung places, when there are long days at sea for plenty more reading! I am really enjoying reviewing books and have found lots of great new authors.