Blood Always Tells

February 17, 2014
In this riveting standalone from Anthony Award–winner Davidson (Evil in All Its Disguises and two other Lily Moore mysteries), former model Dominique Monaghan decides to accompany her married ex-boyfriend, Gary Cowan, from New York City to his country place in the Hudson Valley as part of a blackmail scheme to destroy Gary’s sham marriage to wealthy Trin Lytton-Jones. On arrival upstate, the pair are kidnapped and taken to an abandoned house in rural Pennsylvania. Gary claims to have orchestrated the kidnapping himself as part of a plan to kill Trin, but Dominique finds evidence that suggests otherwise. While the many double-crosses, shifting allegiances, and convoluted plot twists wear thin after a while, the relationship between Dominique and her brother, Desmond Edgars, who comes to Pennsylvania to investigate his sister’s disappearance, keeps the reader turning the pages; the siblings’ emotional solidity is a welcome respite from the sordid ploys of Gary’s enemies. Agent: Judith Weber, Sobel Weber Associates.