Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness

April 5, 2010
Big bad business shenanigans turn a poor little rich girl into a turbocharged avenger in bestseller Bagshawe's absorbing, if overheated, second Sheldonesque thriller (after Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game
). Against her family's wishes, New York socialite Grace Knowles marries Lenny Brookstein, who's more than 30 years her senior—and one of the cofounders of Quorum, “the most profitable hedge fund of all time.” For a while, everything's utterly fabulous, until Lenny's investors lose $75 billion. When Lenny disappears after going for a solo sail off Nantucket one summer day (his body surfaces a month later), Grace winds up in prison for securities fraud, among other charges. Determined to clear her name and Lenny's, Grace pulls off a daring escape. NYPD Det. Mitch Connors sets out to catch the elusive society beauty, but in the course of his hunt provides her some unexpected help. Sheldon fans will find only tenuous links to Sheldon's own novels.