‘Fin Du Monde’ by Sally Spedding

Independently published,
7 June 2021.
ISBN: 979-8509439933

Lieutenant Delphine Rougier is now married to Colonel Alonso Diaz and she is expecting a baby. Thanks to a legacy left her by a Rose Dampier, Delphine was able to buy a large house near Mount Canigou in the Pyrenees. Also living with them in a self-contained flatlet is a very grateful Pueblo Navarro whose life Delphine had helped to save a year ago. He has a new donkey Juanita living in the paddock, replacing his beloved previous one Ana, who was cruelly killed.

 

One day while out shopping Delphine receives a disturbing telephone call saying she will lose the baby she is carrying. They also call her a slag among other things. It's impossible to tell if the voice is of a man or a woman.

 

Five months later she gives birth by caesarean to a baby daughter who they name Rose after Delphine's benefactor. Not long after she returns home from the hospital, she receives hate mail saying she is a baby killer and murderer. She is at a loss to understand who could have sent the letters. As soon as she is well enough, Delphine is determined to discover who can be behind the telephone call and subsequent mail. She racks her brain, coming up with several possibilities, she has certainly led a well chequered past, but can't fathom out why anyone can hate her quite so much. Is it someone from her past or surely not someone closer to her at the present time?

 

There now follows a series of her investigations with the help of forensics trying to identify the perpetrator(s) leading to horrors she could not possibly have imagined.

 

There are many heart wrenching developments in this last of Delphine's investigations. Can she call upon her usual gritty determination to solve what proves to be her hardest case of all?

 

I shall miss these intriguing stories about such a great character by the terrific storyteller Sally Spedding. This is an unmissable read for followers of the determined and intuitive detective skills of Delphine Rougier Diaz.

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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Sally Spedding was born by the sea near Porthcawl in Wales and trained in sculpture in Manchester and at St Martin's, London. Whilst her work was demand, Sally began to realise words can deliver so much more than any narrative sculpture or painting. Her first crime mystery, Wringland, was published in 2001 and has a strong historical thread and is set in the bleak fenland around Sutton Bridge. Her second book Cloven also invokes the past. Sally has written a further seven novels. Her strong familial connections with the Pyrenees, Germany and Holland have provided her with themes of loss and exclusion. The dark side of people, and landscape. The deceptive exterior, the snake in the grass are all themes which recur in her writing. In 2018 she started a series featuring DI John Lyon. There are three books in the series. More recently she has a series of five books set in France featuring Lieutenant Delphine Rougier of the French Labradelle Gendarmarie

 http://www.sallyspedding.com/

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.