Loyal Disloyalty
A Mystery
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Jeffrey Ashford, the master of crime fiction, gives us a compelling portrait of an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure, in Loyal Disloyalty.
When a woman is lured into a car and raped, Richard Adeane begins to suspect his brother-in-law. Should he betray his estranged wife's confidence, knowing she values loyalty far more than most, or act on his suspicions and face the consequences?
"Not a comma is wasted as Ashford engineers this perfectly calibrated little thriller." -- Washington Post Book World on The Price of Failure (1998)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Richard Adeane, a struggling public relations officer in the small English city of Amersford, has become estranged from his loyal wife, Diana, and has taken up with a sexy but vacuous younger woman. Meanwhile, Diana's younger sister, the beautiful and catty Serena, remains married to the much older but extremely wealthy Walker-Jones, a sadistic lout. Serena willingly puts up with her husband's sexual excesses in order to keep her baubles and servants. When a series of women are brutally raped and murdered in the nearby countryside, Richard begins to suspect his brother-in-law. Should he help the police in their inquiries, or keep quiet in the interest of family loyalty? Ashford's characters are vivid, if somewhat stereotypical, in this quietly brooding, classic British mystery. His settings are effectively atmospheric, but his pacing falls flat. He builds little suspense, and what tension he generates is undercut by the rapist's absurd modus operandi of stealing small, cute dogs that he deploys to lure his victims into his car.
