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Rachel Doe is an accountant, a professional woman who learned the lessons of her industrious life from her father. He emphasized education, work, investments in her life and she learned well. At the age of 32 she has a disastrous love affair behind her that ended when she found her lover was stealing and she reported him. Then, because she was a whistle-blower she was ostracized at work and left to take another position. Rachel now lives a quiet life in her London flat, bought with an eye to its being a good investment, of course. Trying to do something different and a little daring, she signs up for a life drawing class. There at the art school she meets Ivy Wiseman. Ivy is everything that Rachel is not -- bold, brash, loud and outgoing. The women quickly become friends, Rachel has not had a close friend in ages and knowing Ivy brings her out of her shell. Then Ivy takes Rachel to the country to the family farm. It's love at first sight for Rachel -- she thought that anyone would love Grace, the Earth Mother, or Ernest, kind and bumbling, and a bit vague. Rachel thinks that she has never been happier. Rachel thinks it is shocking that Ivy hasn't seen her son in ten years since her daughter died by drowning. The boy was taken away by her ex-husband and he kept Ivy from seeing him. Rachel thinks perhaps the family lacks the skills that she has and makes plans to find him and approach him. She has good intentions, just like the road to hell. The author, a criminal lawyer, has written 17 books and clearly she improves with practice. The characters are beautifully drawn: Rachel, lonely and vulnerable; Ivy, full of life and energy; Grace and Ernest, the way Rachel wished her parents had been. Then there is Carl, the ex-husband and Sam, who has not seen his mother in a decade. In some ways the book is slightly disturbing. All of the love, hate, lies, betrayal and madness that lie within the pages of this book are haunting. Fyfield's talent for psychological suspense is very much evident in THE ART OF DROWNING. And no one does it better. She hooks the reader right from the very first page. The plotting, pacing and characterization are the hallmark of someone who knows her craft. Her fans know that and she does not disappoint in her latest outing.
Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, August 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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