Book #64 Deadly Partnership

Deadly Partnership: Murder, Blackmail and Voices from the Spirit World by Richard Gardner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Deadly Partnership is a classic thriller laced with black humour. It starts with a particularly gruesome event that occurred some 30 years ago and hangs, teasingly, in the background. Paul Jenkins, a widower, has enjoyed a successful career in finance and on his retirement plans to go a and live with his sister at the family home on the coast where Julie now lives alone.

Paul has great plans for the house. He can sell his domain in Chiselhurst and use some of the funds to renovate and extend Julie's house. His son Gary is a builder and is having difficulties with creditors. He needs a significant sum of money to keep them at bay and Paul sees him as the obvious choice to carry out the work required. Having paid his workforce what is owed his employees leave him in the lurch and Paul decides to adopt the mantle of Gary's 'labourer'. So far so good. They have been warned about a spate of burglaries locally and advised to keep all windows firmly closed, particularly at night. When a window is inadvertently left open the end result has extraordinary consequences. A disaster that has repercussions that lead to a series of events that spiral out of control.

Can a book be called delicious? This can. It has all the elements of sinister appeal, a dose of spiritualism, talking to the 'other side', as Julie enlists the help of a medium to try and come to terms with what is happening at her home. And there I must leave it, difficult to say more without spoiling the plot.

Hats off to Richard Gardner for a terrific read and my thanks for the PDF. Get yourself a copy. It is well worth it!

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