Part of Series
Since her husband’s suicide, Beth Baker has been living a life of quiet desperation… She knows she is not spending enough time with her young children, nor enough at the law firm in which she is a junior partner. The roof of her house leaks, the bills keep pouring in, and however hard she works, there is never enough money to go round. The future looks bleak. Then – totally unexpectedly – life improves. Her creditors are suddenly more patient and forgiving. And even more strikingly, she starts winning more cases in the criminal courts. Lots more cases! Cases which everyone agrees she should never have won… It is this improbable run of successes that sets warning bells ringing in the offices of the district attorney and the chief of police – which, in turn, leads to a reluctant Sergeant Sam Brody, being placed in charge of the investigation to find out who she is bribing. But there are no bribes, nor have her creditors suddenly grown more charitable. Acting behind the scenes – manipulating everything – is a man who likes to think of himself as her guardian angel. On cold winter evenings, when she hurries from her car to the house – he is there. On spring weekend afternoons, as she busies herself in her small garden – he follows her every move. His mission is to protect her, and if, in the process, other people are hurt – or even end up dead – that is fine with him. But Beth must be careful. It won’t take much to turn her protector into a tormentor…
Author
A pseudonym used by Alan Rustage. Sally Spencer is a pen name, first adopted when the author (actually called Alan Rustage) was writing sagas and it was almost obligatory that a woman's name appeared on the cover (other authors like Emma Blair and Mary Jane Staples are also men). Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher. In 1978-79 he was working in Iran and witnessed the fall of the Shah (see the Blog for what it was like to live through a revolution). He got used to having rifles - and, one occasion, a rocket launcher - pointed at him by both soldiers and revolutionaries, but he was never entirely comfortable with it. He lived in Madrid for over twenty years, and still considers it the most interesting and exciting city he has ever visited, but for the last few years he has opted for a quieter life in the seaside town of Calpe, on the Costa Blanca. His first series of books were historical sagas set in Cheshire (where he grew up) and London. They were very popular with his English readers, but his American readers find the dialect something of a strain. He has written twenty books featuring DCI Woodend (a character based partly on a furniture dealer he used to play dominoes with) and ten (so far!) about Woodend's protegé Monika Paniatowski. His DI Sam Blackstone books are set in Victorian/Edwardian London, New York and Russia, and the Inspector Paco Ruiz books have as their backdrop the Spanish Civil War. Alan is a competitive games player who likes bridge and pub quizzes. It is only by enforcing iron discipline that he doesn't play video games all the time. He now lives on Spain's Costa Blanca.
