WATERLOO SUNSET
by Martin Edwards
Welcome to your new offices. You’re going to die within the week.
No sooner are Liverpool solicitors Harry Devlin and Jim Crusoe settled in their posh new premises in John Newton House than a letter arrives announcing Harry’s death on Midsummer’s Eve. Though the date is less than a week away, Jim’s inclined to treat the mailing as a prank. Potential target Harry (Eve of Destruction, 1998, etc.) is appearing on behalf of Aled Borth, a client convinced his mother was slipped a fatal dose of morphine by Dr. Malachy Needham, the nursing-home owner she left £10,000. And Harry's soon pulled into the death of aspiring model Denise Onuoha, who proves to be only the first escort with the upscale firm of Cultural Companions to be strangled and have her tongue cut out. What to make of the fact that Casper May, the developer ex-husband of Harry’s former lover Juliet, owns not only John Newton House but a half-interest in Cultural Companions along with the good Dr. Needham? Harry’s game attempts to focus on the slain escorts are shaken when the threatening mailings announcing his own death continue—and his partner is attacked.
Edwards, ever the professional (The Arsenic Labyrinth, 2007, etc.), plots densely but lucidly and includes a surprisingly logical killer whose motive is perhaps just a mite obscure.