RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
Throughout the book Brigid finds herself wondering what is true and what is not. After Jacquie Neilsen asks her to investigate the death of her son, things start going awry. Brigid starts feeling rough, nauseous and even has problems moving. When she goes to see Dr Tim Neilsen, she is told that she may showing symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and she is afraid.
One of her dogs got sick after he ingested some kind of toad under her niece's supervision, and then Brigid starts suspecting that Gemma Kate fed the dog the toad on purpose to punish her for not allowing her new friend Peter to come to the house when neither Brigid nor Carlo was there. Those suspicions grow when Brigid starts feeling rough and even has hallucinations. During church one Sunday all the congregation gets sick, and it turns out that the coffee had been tampered with and antifreeze has been added. As a consequence, one of the men who had joined the congregation lately dies.
Brigid's suspicions on Gemma Kate grow more and more when she finds some books about poisons in her bedroom as well as the internet history shows her search on the topic. Brigid tries to talk to Carlo but he thinks she is not thinking clearly, and Gemma Kate is not very worried about what her aunt is saying. It is actually Gemma Kate who discovers the truth, a truth that Brigid has difficulties in believing. Gemma Kate says that all the episodes Brigid has had happened just after she has spent time with her friend Mallory, but Brigid has a hard time believing that. Then they discover that Mallory has been lying. She was not a rich heiress as she claimed, but she is a widow. She was a nurse to the man who became her first husband, and he died under suspicious circumstances. His son, who Brigid contacts, thinks that Mallory killed him. When she also investigates the accident who invalided her present husband, Owen, there is some unclear circumstances. Brigid thinks that Mallory killed young Joe because he may have seen her trying to kill Owen, and now that Brigid is investigating the young man's death, she has become a problem.
Brigid and Gemma Kate plan to find evidence. So Brigid will go to the house and try to get Owen alone. The man can't talk but he can respond to questions by blinking his eyes. So Brigid goes there, trying to appear nonchalant, but when she finally gets to make her way into Owen's room, Mallory appears, holding Brigid's gun. As Brigid tries to defend herself, Mallory shoots and hits her leg. Then Brigid is forced out of the house and finds herself pushed into the car boot. Mallory drives around, hoping that she will die. Yet, Brigid resists, and at some point Mallory stops the car and opens the car boot door, and there is a fight, and Brigid manages to grab the gun and shoot her. Mallory dies, and Brigid passes out. When she recovers consciousness, she is in a hospital and Carlo is leaning over her, worried sick.
When Brigid is discharged, she and the local detectives go to talk to Owen, and by answering questions, Owen tells the truth about the woman he was married to. Mallory was adding salt to his feeding tube to kill him when Joe walked in. The boy didn't know what she was doing, but Mallory was worried he would tell his stepfather, the doctor, and he would discover the truth.
At the end of the book Brigid is totally recovered. We learn that Owen died some weeks before and left his money to some medical institutions. And Gemma Kate settled down with Brigid and Carlo before going to university in Arizona.
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