Killing the Fatted Calf (A & B Crime) - Hardcover

Kelly, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0749005114 ISBN 13: 9780749005115

Publisher: Allison & Busby LTD, 2001

Synopsis

Superintendent Gregory Summers is co-operating with the National Crime Squad on Operation Cuckoo, intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. The Thames Valley is a prime target for modern day slave traders, who make the unfortunate slave pay their own fare to the promised land.
Meanwhile, Antony Lucas tracks down wealthy widow Elise Weissman, the mother who gave him up for adoption thirty years ago. He is cautiously welcomed into the family, despite the initial hostility of his half-sister, Cressida, who has always believed herself an only child.
What the Weissmans don't know is that Antony was badly abused by his adoptive parents, a trauma that has left him incapable of human affection and looking not for reconciliation but revenge. And what Antony doesn't know is that Elise is not the genteel, middle-class lady that she appears. Her background is more colourful and she will not sit quietly by and let him destroy all that she has built up. A spiral of violence and devastation ensues, violence that must end in death for one member of the family. But whose motive was strongest? And where does the sudden death of an elderly man in his luxury hotel room fit into the picture?

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Kelly was born in the Chilterns and brought up in Oxford. After reading French and English at London University, she worked as a freelance computer programmer for many years. She is now a full-time writer and lives in West London with her solicitor husband and cat.

From Publishers Weekly:

British author Kelly's second Gregory Summers British police procedural (after The Lone Traveller) features possibly the blandest detective in the genre. Superintendent Summers is working with the National Crime Squad on Operation Cuckoo, an effort to crack a ring that smuggles immigrants into the country, but does little else than act politically correct. This whole sequence seems excerpted from another, less interesting book. Fortunately, the main plot concerns Elise Weissman, the wealthy widow of an eminent art patron, who when she was 18 (and called Elsie Riley) was just starting to make her living as a servant. After an older man raped her at a private party (in reality an orgy) where she was serving drinks, her employer "paid" (and intimidated) her into silence. When Elise/Elsie realized she was pregnant, she decided to give up her baby for adoption in London. Unknown to her, the couple who adopted her baby, Anthony, were sadistic child-abusers who made the boy's life hell. Thirty years later, Anthony returns to find his biological mother, now a titled socialite, and to seek a very personal revenge. The interplay between mother and son lifts the story way above average, while the ending comes as a total surprise. A competent writer who could benefit from some judicious editing, Kelly might do well next round to retire Summers and introduce a more exciting sleuth.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allison & Busby LTD
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0749005114
• ISBN 13: 9780749005115
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252