Cristie Lansing had two problems. Firstly, she couldn’t spell her forename, but her main problem was the fact that she had been madly in love with Steven Hazard for the best part of her adult life – a man who was unfortunately married to the manipulative Sara. After a fortunate “accident”, Sara drives her car into the river, her disfigured body being found weeks later.

But when Inspector McKee, Homicide Squad, gets an anonymous note claiming it was murder, Cristie begins to suspect the object of her desire as someone who has gone one step to far in order for them to be together. But Hazard was far from the only member of Sara’s social circle who had a reason to kill her…

Book Club time, and you know what that probably means…

… actually, this one is fine. Not great, but it’s fine. Maybe that’s overstating it – it’s adequate. That’s better… There’s a murder, another one, a trick that isn’t played which caught me out by not playing it, and then an almost random member of the cast is unmasked as the murderer.

Having said that, there are definite problems.

The point of view hops around a bit, but is primarily shared between Cristie-without-an-h and the police investigation. Unfortunately Cristie is not a particularly endearing character – and a bit dim at times – so I found myself hoping that the next chapter would be back with the police.

It’s also one of those books where the reader knows a little bit more about the goings-on than the investigators so you can see occasions when the police are wasting their time and the reader knows it, making those episodes seem a bit pointless. I guess when the other sections had an annoying person as their focus, then this made the sections with the police chasing their tails rather disappointing.

Oh, and it doesn’t help this old reader when there is a Mary and a Margot amongst the characters. There are other letters that names can start with…

So, this is a decent enough book, but absolutely nothing here inspires me to read more from Helen Reilly…