In 1991, four members of the Conroy family and an executive assistant are crammed in a rental car, running late for a business meeting. Rob Conroy is a little gleeful and also angry. His Uncle Tony, the car’s driver, deserves a comeuppance, but his plans for the family-owned Conroy Enterprises could also shutter Rob’s beloved publishing house. The car speeds up, Tony loses control of the vehicle, and they crash into a military truck. Afterward, Rob wakes up in the hospital to find that his uncle, father, and brother are dead, and there’s a policeman waiting to talk to him. Two hours before the crash, family patriarch Charles Conroy had died, making his will of great interest to the surviving members of the Conroy family and to the police. Police soon discover that the car Tony was driving had been sabotaged, and Chief Inspector Owen Flint informs Rob that the intended victim of the car crash might still be alive. After two years recuperating from a mental breakdown, Rob isn’t prepared to analyze his family’s secrets. He and Flint can’t quit though, after an employee disappears and there’s another murder.
VERDICT Spencer, author of various series featuring police officers (“Jennie Redhead”; “Monika Paniatowski”) offers an intense, convoluted stand-alone. It’s not always easy to piece together Rob’s twisted thoughts and the police investigation, but readers who enjoy Spencer’s works might want to try.
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