Falling Off Air
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Catherine Sampson's debut novel, a thrilling suspense about a single mother suspected of murder.
Robin Ballantyne's life is finally coming together. After learning she was pregnant with twins and being abandoned by her irresponsible boyfriend, Adam, she's settling into life as a single mother. But one night, after putting the children to bed, she hears what she thinks is an argument outside. Then, suddenly, a body falls past her window. Running outside, she finds Paula Carmichael, a renowned activist, dead on the ground. Although Robin and Paula weren't acquainted, the police find Robin's name mentioned - frequently - in the dead woman's diary. Robin then learns that her ex-boyfriend had been making a documentary about Paula and may know more than he lets on. But before she can ask him, he's killed by a hit-and-run driver - who was driving Robin's car. Now a suspect herself, Robin must figure out who wanted both Robin and Adam dead before she loses her freedom, her children, and her life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of journalist Sampson's smooth debut novel, Robin Ballantyne, a single mother of infant twins, sees a neighbor she knows by sight plunge to her death from her South London mansion during a storm. Was it murder, suicide or an accident? Ballantyne is stunned to learn that the victim is none other than Paula Carmichael, a driven, charismatic gadfly, the social conscience of the United Kingdom. Ballantyne, a television producer on extended maternity leave, discovers that some of her colleagues, including the father of her children, had been filming a documentary about Carmichael that was abruptly, puzzlingly scuttled. When Ballantyne herself becomes a suspect in the mess after a second death, she traces the crimes to a halfway house in foggy, off-season Cornwall. The author gives scant attention to setting and the plot unfolds slowly at first, but about midway through, the pace picks up and the last quarter is a first-rate read. As the mother of young children, Ballantyne makes for an unusual sleuth: how many detectives need to first hire a babysitter before going out to save the world? Fans of Ayelet Waldman's Mommy-Track mystery series will want to check out this thriller.
