‘The Fly and The Tree’ by James I. Morrow

Published by The Book Guild Ltd,
28 July 2020.
ISBN: 978-191-3208-57-8 (PB)

The author, a consultant neurologist at a major teaching hospital in the UK, has drawn on his medical experiences to pen an unusual, female-led thriller.

The protagonist is a thoroughly modern heroine Baz Clifford, an ambitious, audacious biochemist, whose research has uncovered certain anomalies that lead her to conclude that a woman’s so called accidental death is far from being an open and shut case. and that it was something more.

Baz’s suspicions that the woman, Cathy Marsden, was murdered are not shared by the deceased’s husband or by the police.  She is undeterred by the battle with them that she faces in order to establish the bona fide nature of Cathy’s death but is doggedly determined to prove them wrong.  Who killed Cathy and why?

During Baz’s investigations she stumbles across and befriends a lonely, bullied, troubled sixteen year old boy, Frankie, who was adopted as a baby, but who is convinced that Cathy was his long-lost birth mother. His determination to uncover the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the circumstances in which Cathy met her end, is no less unwavering than Baz’s.  Undaunted, together the duo forms an unlikely partnership to do almost anything in the quest for the full, unvarnished version. Bring it on!

With its cocktail of interesting characters, this is an intriguing and compelling read that smacks one right between the eyes, and becomes a page-turner.  The drama escalates and the finale is a very satisfying blast.  

------

Reviewer: Serena Fairfax

Dr. James I. Morrow has been a Consultant Neurologist based at a major teaching hospital in Belfast for a number of years. His principal interest has been in the treatment of epilepsy. During his career he has been involved with and supervised many clinical trials, principally regarding the safety of medicines. He has written and published a number of medical books and has recently branched out into the writing of crime fiction novels including 'Slainte' and 'Stiffed'. He lives in Newtownards, Co. Down.

  

Serena Fairfax spent her childhood in India, qualified as a lawyer in England and practised in London for many years. She began writing by contributing feature articles to legal periodicals   then turned her hand to fiction. Having published nine novels all, bar one, hardwired with a romantic theme, she has also written short stories and accounts of her explorations off the beaten track that feature on her blog. A tenth, distinctly unromantic, novel is a work in progress. Thrillers, crime and mystery narratives, collecting old masks and singing are a few of her favourite things.

www.serenafairfax.com