5 July 2001.
ISBN: 978-0-7472-7472-6 (HB)
Having been evicted from her house sitting by the odious Bertie and Charlie, Fran Varady is now again homeless, or as her friend Ganesh puts it, dossing in his Uncle Haris’s garage, which is situated at the rear of the newsagests he runs. Which doesn’t sound too bad until one considers the petrol smell, the stacks of old discarded boxes, the rusty bike, and no windows. But things could be worse, it depends on your point of view.
However, when Ganesh reports on a bloke asking after her in the shop, Fran is convinced it is the DSS checking up on her, but it turns out to be one Clarence Duke private investigator hired by Frann’s mother, who had walked out on her when Fran was just seven. Having spent the last fourteen years trying to forget her mother’s existence Fran is wary of Clarence’s message that her mother wants to see her, now she is dying.
Memories flood back as Fran recalls her mother, and with curiosity uppermost she agrees to visit her mother at a hospice in Egham. Yet more shocks are in store for Fran as her mother asks her to find her sister, the child that she gave up, virtually at birth. And so, against her better judgment Fran agrees, and embarks on a journey to find the sister she has never known.
This is the fourth book in the Fran Varady series and in this book the mystery is closer to home, as Fran confronts her own background. But that is over simplifying it, as there are of course others involved. Where had her sister been all these years? What has her life been like? Does she know she is adopted? What of her adopted parents? And why is Clarence Duke following Fran? Then Clarence Duke turns up dead.
Once again Ann Granger weaves a fascinating tale, including all the characters I have come to enjoy. Gan is as ever great support to Fran and although often cross with her, always because he sees so clearly that she is as usual on a spiral to destruction.
I love Uncle Hari, who is convinced that if space debris is going to fall from the sky, it will surely fall through his roof.
A marvellous
entry in this series. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett
Ann Granger was born in
Portsmouth where she was a pupil at the then Northern Grammar School for Girls
and went from there to London University where she achieved a BA in Modern
Languages (French with German). After a period spent first teaching English in
France and then working in the Visa Section of British Embassies around the
world. She met her husband, who was also working for the British Embassy, in
Prague, and together they received postings to places as far apart as Munich
and Lusaka. She is the author of the Mitchell and Markby Mysteries, the Fran
Varady series and more recently the Lizzie Martin mystery series. She lives in
Bicester, near Oxford.
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