BLOODY ROSES
by Natasha Cooper
When London banker Richard Lawrence-Crescent is arrested for the murder of his colleague Sarah Allfarthing, he naturally uses his one call to phone his ex-lover, civil servant Willow King (A Common Death, Poison Flowers), on holiday in Tuscany with her current lover, Detective Inspector Tom Worth. Willow, assuming her take-charge identity of romance-novelist Cressida Woodruffe so that she can go further undercover—new hairdo, new clothes, new jewelry—as a personnel consultant at the bank, soon uncovers not only the secrets of director Jeremy Stedington, client Ronald Hopecastle, and chief exec Robert Biggleigh-Clart, but Sarah's double life as well—which Willow, ``filled with a mixture of terror and social embarrassment,'' triumphantly explores. Flashes of genuine detection mar the otherwise untroubled sheen of fine dining, well-chosen wines, and tasteful furnishings, as Cooper confirms her status as the coziest of cozy Britishers now working the genre.