FRANCES FYFIELD

Richard Beaumont hoped to see the elusive chough on the Dover cliffs. Instead he sees a young woman falling to her death. No-one recognises her, no-one has reported her missing, and Richard returns, shaken, to his new young wife, but instead of finding solace in Lilian's company, he locks himself away and obsessively paints the scene of the woman's broken body on the rocks. His cool behaviour towards her takes Lilian to the flat below and the wordly-wise company of Sarah Fortune. But Sarah, once Richard's lover, is awkward with her and is also preoccupied with her brother's unbreakable habit of cat-burglary, and the suspicious traffic to the penthouse at the top of the mansion block. Unable to forget what he witnessed, Richard returns to the coast and is befriended by the local police surgeon. Recently widowed, John is depressed, not so much by his wife's death but by the realisation that his marriage had been a loveless void.Recognising the symptoms, Richard introduces him to Sarah, so that she can no longer ignore the Beaumonts' troubles and is drawn into helping to trace where the dead girl came from and in so doing reveals a trade which is both breath-takingly lucrative and chillingly cruel.

Richard Beaumont hoped to see the elusive crow on the Dover cliffs. Instead he sees a young woman falling to her death. No-one recognises her, no-one has reported her missing and Richard returns, shaken, to his wife, but instead of finding solace in Lilian's company, he locks himself away and obsessively paints the scene of the woman's broken body on the rocks. His cool behaviour towards her takes Lilian to the flat below and the worldly-wise company of Sarah Fortune. But Sarah, once Richard's lover, is awkward with her and is also preoccupied with her brother's unbreakable habit of cat-burglary and the suspicious traffic to the penthouse at the top of the mansion block. Unable to forget what he witnessed, Richard returns to the coast and is befriended by the local police surgeon. Recently widowed, John is depressed, not so much by his wife's death but by the realisation that his marriage had been a loveless void.Recognising the symptoms, Richard introduces him to Sarah so that she can no longer ignore the Beaumonts' troubles and is drawn into helping to trace where the dead girl came from and in so doing reveals a trade which is both breathtakingly lucrative and chillingly cruel.

Douglas Petty is a man who enjoys his reputation as an unreconstructed male with a penchant for too much wine and too many women. Inheriting his father's eccentric estate and dog sanctuary quietened him a little, and marriage to Amy a little more. Even so, it seemed out of character for him a sue a tabloid newspaper for libel when it printed a scurrilous story about him. His lawyers told him he had a good chance of winning the case, mainly because Amy's testimony would clearly refute the story. But then Amy is involved in a horrendous train crash and while the authorities assume she died in the resulting fire, there is no body to prove it. And if she wasn't killed why has she disappeared and, with no money and no other family, where is she? In a story of mesmerising suspense, Amy slowly reveals why she cannot return to her beloved home, and why she can never escape from the lies she was told as a child.

Theodore Calvert walked out on his wife and their children, Anna and Therese, when they needed him most. Now, from beyond the grave, his carefully crafted will is set to unravel his daughters' lives all over again. . . It was Isabel Calvert's pious Christianity that drove Theodore away. When he left, it was the Church that replaced him in his daughters' upbringing. By the time Isabel died, it was the Blessed Sacrament Convent that the daughters were calling home. And while Anna rebels and returns to the real world, Therese is still consumed by the life of duty and worship. In the midst of all this arrives the mysterious Francis: a young, good-looking, golden-haired gardener. Although the nuns are besotted by his charm and handiwork, Anna is less convinced by his motives: the killing of a magpie is an eerie, ominous sign of what is to follow. As Anna tries to unpick Francis's sinister plans, she realizes that the answer lies in finding out the truth about her own family's past. The question is, can she do it before it is too late? Seeking Sanctuary is another brilliant tale of enveloping, encapsulating suspense. It was wrong to be so fearless of the dark, but it was a fear she had never learned and the lack of it made her indifferent to being followed at night. Girls being followed was a fact of life: she could run faster than any thief and besides, had nothing to steal from her shoulder pack. . . . The footsteps trailed away as she neared her own flat. Probably the one who followed tonight was one of the homeless who parked themselves at the back door of the convent, encouraged by the rumour of Christian charity. They had banged on the door last winter, persisting until the ivy had grown down to shield the exit and announce its permanent disuse. . . . She drew level to the back door on the way to her own, and she saw that the ivy had been clipped, neatly trimmed to frame the wood. Once inside, she went upstairs and onto the roof to gaze down into the garden where there was nothing to see. Looking up she could see the stars; imagine the souls in the firmament. Sister John and her darling mother. Her father would surely be in hell. from Seeking Sanctuary