Watching, patiently waiting, with knife in hand, for the perfect moment…
Claudia, pregnant with a girl and with twin step-sons to look after, has a beautiful home and a loving husband, James, who is often away in a navy submarine. She arranges to employ a nanny to help out. Especially when the baby comes. In first person, present, we follow her preparations for the coming event.
Also in the first person, present, and the first time I have come across two in one story, is the nanny, Zoe. At first, she is the perfect find; all that Claudia could want, but soon, there seems to be something not quite up front about her, and Claudia’s suspicions are prodded into life as she catches Zoe snooping. Her excuses are almost plausible. The tension mounts, so that it is as breath-robbing when about to be caught red-handed looking into a cupboard as it would be at the unseen approach of a knife-wielding fiend…
Zoe, up until moving into Claudia’s home, was living with loopy, dearly beloved, Cecelia, who is obsessed with having a child of her own. Whether Zoe will move heaven and earth to help Cecelia achieve her goal regardless of obstacles, is a gut-twisting question. And Zoe has become friends with Claudia’s friend, Pip, who is also heavily pregnant…
Lorraine and her husband are both detectives, investigating the slaughter of a pregnant woman about to give birth. Then another woman barely survives a similar attack, but her baby does not. Lorraine and Adam’s two teenage daughters are not coping with the strain of their parents’ working hours, nor their constant bickering. Lorraine is not able to come to grips with Adam’s one-off affair with another woman. Their elder teenager threatens to drop out of school and get married, which adds to Lorraine’s bitter internal turmoil. So, what does this have to do with murdered women, or is it a writer’s red herring?
There is no concocted end-story to arrange a neat unexpectedness; the clues are all there. But I didn’t see it coming. What a surprise!
If Samantha Hayes goes from strength to strength, I am looking forward to her next offering.
