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Annabel Nettleton is alone in the world, save for her son and her husband Dylan. Dylan is a secretive and violent man, however, and moves them from town to town every few months. Annabel has had enough of this, and has told him that she wants to stay in Carmel where they have recently rented a property, and is also secretly consulting a lawyer about obtaining a divorce. Returning from a meeting with the lawyer one morning, she is greeted by a PI who informs her that he has been asked to locate Dylan because he is shortly to inherit a vast fortune from his estranged grandfather who only has days to live. But when Annabel tells Dylan this, he flies into a violent rage and storms out. When his car is found abandoned, a nationwide news alert goes out, and the press are excited by the story of the missing heir. The story is spotted by several people from Dylan's past who immediately drop everything and head to Carmel in search of him themselves. Their motives are as unclear as Dylan's own history, and it is not long before Annabel's house in broken into, her temporary bolthole is set fire to, and she is under suspicion of murder. This was a tremendously enjoyable read, which managed to combine the fast pace of a thriller with a strong element of mystery concerning Dylan, and the characters who come looking for him. Annabel is an interesting protagonist, who has survived a painful early life and who falls into marriage with Dylan as a sort of false salvation, but is an intelligent woman who has now reached a turning point in her life and is facing up to some tough decisions. The impending inheritance makes her question whether she is doing the best thing for her son by seeking a divorce, or whether in fact she is likely to lose him in a custody battle. The author manages to portray all this, and a fledgling romance, without being overly sentimental. An older woman, adopting the guise of a homeless person, who slept in her car near Annabel's house, keeping watch on her and her son, also intrigued me. Her presence seemed benign, and protective of Annabel, but she had left behind her the promise of a hard but improving life to locate Dylan, compelled to revisit something from her long-buried past. Was she really motivated by money as some of the others hot on his trail seemed to be? I wanted to know how things would turn out for Annabel, as well as to see a resolution to the mystery, and every time I put RICOCHET down, I could feel it calling to me. This is certainly one of the best mystery thrillers I have read for some time, and I recommend it whole-heartedly.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, May 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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