EVE OF DESTRUCTION

by Martin Edwards ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

Though Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin's making his first appearance on this side of the pond, he's already had too much experience defending lowlifes like teenaged car-thief Shaun Quade to accept the tale that Stevan Whyatt tells him. Yet accept it he does, swallowing Whyatt's story that he's tapped his own phone lines because he suspects his wife Becky's been two-timing him, and that he's got the lovers' conversations on tape although he doesn't know who the other man is and can't even bring himself to listen to them anymore. The whole setup screams setup, but Harry just keeps swallowing each piece of the puzzle he's fed--identifying Becky's jolly friend as staffing consultant Dominic Revill; insinuating himself into the acquaintance of Revill, his wife and partner Emma, and the couple's smoldering nanny Evelyn Bell; learning that Becky's first husband has been released from a mental institution and is now phoning her in heavy-breathing silence; listening to Whyatt complain about the perfidy of his brother Jeremy and Jeremy's wife Michelle, who are pressing him to sell the family nursery to a beastly corporation that will make it impossible for Whyatt to practice his best-loved vocation of designing garden mazes--and all the while overhearing Becky's plans gradually escalate from adultery to murder. Luckily, Edwards, who edited last year's Crime Writers anthology Perfectly Criminal, has more tricks up his sleeve than the Whyatts do, and some of Agatha Christie's trick of making you look exactly the wrong way.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 039333774X

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Foul Play/Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998

Categories: FICTION