It’s been far too long since I read a book by Sue Fortin, so it’s a particular pleasure today to be joining the blog tour and sharing my review of The Dead Wife: published for kindle on 12th July by HarperCollins, the paperback will be available in September. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to the publishers for my advance reading ecopy.
To my shame, I haven’t featured one of Sue’s excellent books here on Being Anne since 2016 when I read, enjoyed and reviewed The Girl Who Lied: you’ll find my review here, and the lovely interview that followed here. And it’s been good to experience her writing again…
SINCLAIR WIFE DEAD! HUSBAND CLEARED!
Police have ruled out suspicious circumstances in the investigation into the death of Elizabeth Sinclair, wife of charismatic entrepreneur Harry Sinclair, found drowned in the lake of the family’s holiday park.
It’s been two years since the Sinclair case closed but when reporter Steph Durham receives a tipoff that could give her the scoop of the year, she’s drawn deeper and deeper into the secretive Sinclair family.
Elizabeth’s death wasn’t a tragic accident. And the truth will come at a deadly price…
Steph is a journalist, invited to cover the re-opening of the Conmere Resort in the Lakes – but she has an agenda of her own as she tries to uncover the truth behind the drowning and death of Elizabeth Sinclair, the wife of one of the owners. And just to make things more difficult, her mother – with whom she has a strained relationship – was the police officer who concluded that the death was an accident.
There was a lot I very much liked about this book. The construction is clever – there are glimpses of Elizabeth’s life that reveal she was hardly the innocent victim we might initially believe her to be, and insights into her relationship with the whole Sinclair family. And Steph herself is one of those rather endearing heroines who finds herself in personal danger, and rather seeks it out, but persists in doggedly pursuing her investigation – increasingly complicated by her growing attraction to Harry Sinclair, the dead woman’s husband, who could well have been involved in her death. The red herrings and twists come thick and fast, and the whole story is really well paced and plotted, with moments that get your heart beating faster and make the pages turn considerably faster.
I very much liked the setting – well drawn, a really strong sense of place, and a pervading sense of unease and foreboding about the landscape despite its wild natural beauty. The characterisation is very good too – particularly the members of the Sinclair family, although only Harry is particularly likeable. Steph’s uneasy relationship with her mother is well handled too – with a few surprises, and some nice contrasts with Elizabeth’s relationship with her own mother Sonia, now grieving and driven to discover the truth.
The story itself is satisfyingly gripping, its conclusion plausible but not at all what I expected… yes, I rather enjoyed this one!
About the author
Sue Fortin is an award-winning USA Today and an Amazon best-selling author, an international bestseller and has reached #1 in the Amazon UK Kindle chart. Sue writes mystery, suspense and romance, sometimes combining all three. Sue was born in Hertfordshire but had a nomadic childhood, moving often with her family, before eventually settling in West Sussex where she now lives with her husband, children and grandchildren.
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