LITTLE BONES
by Sam Blake
Twenty-four-year-old Garda Cathy Connolly might be a fearless kick-boxing champion but when she discovers a baby's bones concealed in the hem of a wedding dress, the case becomes personal.
For artist Zoe Grant, the bones are another mysterious twist in her mother's disappearance. Then her grandmother, head of the Grant Valentine department store empire is found dead, and a trail of secrets is uncovered that threatens to shake a dynasty.
In a story that moves from London's East End to the Las Vegas mafia, one thing is certain - for Cat, life will never be the same again.
There’s a gruesome discovery at the scene of a burglary, little bones found sewn into the lining of a vintage wedding dress, a crime no longer hidden in the past that has repercussions in the present.
It’s fragile artist/florist Zoe's house that has been ransacked and as investigations into the bones take place she’s forced to live elsewhere. That’s soon scuppered by the unexpected death of her grandmother, a wealthy/famous woman.
Finding the bones was South County Dublin guard Cathy Connolly - making her first appearance in Blake’s debut novel – and she has a secret or two of her own, a secret that the reader makes assumptions about only to be cleverly foxed by the author.
Connolly is a young detective, feisty and courageous, and her partner/boss O’Rouke is a strong colleague. The bones, sent over to England, come back with clues and the story reveals generations of lies and secrets that sets them on a murderous trail.
There are separate parallel story lines and viewpoints that take events outside Ireland as the mysteries add up. The stories revolve around women in this complex police procedural. Family relationships, greed and memory are examined in this extremely well-told, well-written novel.
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About Sam Blake:
Sam Blake is a pseudonym for Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin, the founder of The Inkwell Group publishing consultancy and the national writing resources website Writing.ie. She is Ireland's leading literary scout who has assisted many award winning and bestselling authors to publication. Vanessa has been writing fiction since her husband set sail across the Atlantic for eight weeks and she had an idea for a book.
Follow Sam Blake on Twitter @writersamblake or Vanessa @inkwellhq – be warned, they get tetchy with each other!