Damned by Logic

May 20, 2013
Copywriter David Ansell feels trapped in an unsatisfying career and marriage in this absorbing stand-alone from British author Ashford (Justice Deferred). A new assignment—to create an advertising campaign for client Rex Cruising Company—gives him some reason for hope. Ansell joins the Helios, a ship on a Mediterranean cruise, where he meets Melanie Caine, a prostitute being used as a diamond-smuggling mule. When Melanie twigs that she’s been made, she seduces Ansell and uses him to unknowingly offload the diamonds, intending to claim them later. It’s a fatal mistake, and one that soon has Melanie in trouble with her handlers and Ansell trapped in a web of his own lies. While Det. Insp. Glover focuses on Ansell as his sole suspect in two deaths, only contrarian Det. Constable Belinda Draper believes Ansell might be innocent. The engaging byplay between Glover and Draper and some nifty police work highlight Ashford’s clever resolution.

July 1, 2013
An advertising man, whose Mediterranean cruise ends with him turned into a fool and a smuggler, finds still bigger problems awaiting him at home. David Ansell's marriage has never been happy, and his firm hasn't paid for his shrewish wife, Eileen, to accompany him when they book his passage on MV Helios so that he can work up a new ad campaign for the Rex Cruising Company. So he's a perfect target for Melanie Caine, an upscale tart who entices him to her cabin, makes him forget both his marriage vows and his good judgment, and then asks him to carry home Georgie, a stuffed Barbary ape she can't fit into her luggage. When Ansell returns home, Eileen's gossipy friend Barbara Morley instantly spots the toy, sees a few telltale blonde hairs it's picked up, smells the perfume and tips a wink to Eileen. The next day, Ansell gets a frantic call from Melanie demanding that he return the ape to her, but it's too late, says Eileen triumphantly: She's already burned Georgie out of jealousy and spite. Even worse, Melanie soon meets a similar fate at the hands of her criminal masters, who, skeptical of her claim that Georgie's been burned, decide to break into Ansell's house to look for him and find only Eileen instead. In a darker mood, Ashford (Justice Deferred, 2012, etc.) would turn their unauthorized visit into the opening move in an all-out squeeze play against Ansell. Instead, he focuses on the members of the county CID--DI Jim Glover and DS Josh Frick, who are convinced Ansell killed his wife, and DC Belinda Draper, who finds herself caught in the middle between her superiors and their prey. Accomplished, routine work disappointing only due to the fact that the most interesting development, Draper's unlikely romance with Ansell, gets such short shrift.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2013
Poor David Ansell. An advertising copywriter with the most shrewish wife outside of Shakespeare, he's assigned the job of riding along on a cruise ship's tour of the Mediterranean (so he can extol the ship's virtues in an ad campaign). He meets and is quickly seduced by a beautiful woman. Yes, he probably should know better, and when she asks him to take a small stuffed toy monkey through customs for her, he definitely should be suspicious. But, hey, he's a young guy in love. And when the object of his affections dumps him once they're back on dry land, and she later turns up deadwell, let's leave the rest of the story to the author because that's where the story really gets interesting. Let's just say David has a serious problem on his hands, and he's going to need more smarts than he's exhibited so far if he's going to get out of this situation alive. This is another clever, well-plotted, and satisfying mystery from an always-interesting writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)