RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
This time the gang gets even crazier.
Elizabeth finds herself in a dilemma. The Viking, the man who kidnapped her and Stephenk, has given her an ultimatum: either she kills Victor or he he will kill Joyce.
Elizabeth takes Joyce to see Victor, and once in his apartment Elizabeth produces a gun and tells Victor that she has to kill him. Joyce is shocked and upset when Elizabeth takes Victor to the bathroom. Yet, she doesn't kill him. She shoots the gun, and then with the help of Bogdan she and Joyce sneak Victor out of the apartment, and then Victor should stay in Joyce's guest room. The women with the help of Ibrahim, Ron and Pauline even take photographs of Victor in a grave to send the Viking. Yet, the Viking is not a fool. He goes to Victor's apartment, and he finds the bullet in the ceiling, so he knows Elizabeth has lied.
The next we know the Viking breaks into Joyce's flat and threatens to kill her. Joyce is her usual self, and even tells him that she has invested in cryptocurrency, which is what the Viking uses to launder money. Somehow she seems to get him round her little finger and offers him tea. Joyce spikes the tea with Victor's tranquilizers, and the Viking falls asleep. When he comes to, he is tied and sees the faces of not only Joyce, but the others and Victor. The conversation they have is hilarious, and the Victor admits that he is no killer. Stephen then appears and he has been thinking about the valuable books he saw in the Viking's library, and he has discovered his identity. His name is Henrik. After this episode Henric starts helping JOyce and the others with the investigation in the crime.
Ron has been trying to get information from Jack Mason and he says that he knows that Bethany is dead, but she didn't die in the cliff. She was murdered and buried somewhere else. When Ron tells Elizabeth, she thinks that Bethany's body could be in Heather's cottage, a property which Jack bought after her going to jail. Chief Constable Andrew Everton has recently been in the village, reading one of his books to the pensioners, and Elizabeth goes to find him. She manages to persuade him to help, and he sends a team to dig up in Heather's property, and they find a rifle and a box with money. When Chris and Donna go to arrest Jack, they find him dead with a gun in his hand.
Elizabeth and Joyce get Henrik to help, and he tries to trace those names of the fake accounts that were used to launder money, and one of the names is Michael Gullis. Joyce knows who the man, and she tells Elizabeth that Michael Gullis is one of the characters in Andrew Everton's books. So the club try to trick him. They all go to Henrik's house, and Andrew goes to see Henrik after he has discovered he can help him to gain access to the money he obrained through fraud. Henrik makes him talk, and he admits that he has ten million pounds in some accounts he can't access, and it was something that he learnt while researching information for his novel. Then the journalist, Bethany Waite, started to stir trouble, but she died. What Andrew does not know is that a camera is recording him, and he is seen through the Instagram account of FIona Clemence, the journalist who took Bethany's place after she died. Everybody sees his confession, but he refuses to admit to killing Bethany. Then Victor appears, and with his gift to make people talk, he confesses to killing Bethany.
Things are not so straightforward. Joyce and the others go to the cliff where Bethany's car went over, and when they decide to go for a walk, Ron complains of his knee and stays behind with Pauline. He tells Pauline that he has decyphered who the name Robert Brown Msc is. It is the facial cream she uses. Pauline then tells her that Bethany came to see her because she was afraid for her life. She asked her to make her face up and even borrowed a wig. Then she told Pauline that she wanted to disappear, and she gave her some access to an account with money. That is what she last saw of her, but she imagines that Bethany didn't die. She is right. There is a chapter in which we discover that Bethany is in Dubai, living from the money she expertly transferred from the accounts that Andrew Everton created. The reason why she ran away is that she was scared because someone had sent her a bullet with Mike's name written on it.
Andrew Everton is now in prison. He didn't kill Bethany but he confessed to Victor because he thought that was what he was supposed to say. Heather committed suicide; Connie saw her suicide note but she ripped it off and left another, hinting that it was murder and Connie could help her. What she wanted was to get involved and maybe get a reduction of her sentence. The person who Andrew killed was Jack, and it seems that Chris is suspicious and may get DNA from the medal he won and Andrew may have contaminated when he gave it to him. And Elizabeth and Viktor have started to suspect that the resolution to the whole mystery is in Dubai, and they plan to go next.
Like the other books, this novel was great. I love the characters, especially Joyce. The way the characters behave is crazy but endearing and fun too. There are also thrilling moments and parts which are also moving.
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