Eve of Destruction

Harry Devlin's a Liverpool lawyer who's also a "recidivist amateur sleuth....as keen on mysteries as some people are on sex." He can't help his passion for solving mysteries: violent or unexpected death has been part of his experience since he was a little boy. In Eve of Destructionit comes to him--improbably--through tape recordings.Liverpool is "England's largest village" so Devlin's used to running into people he knows. But even he's surprised when a client seeking a divorce plays Devlin tapes he recorded of his wife on the phone with her lover. Devlin recognizes the man's voice and starts his own investigation without telling his client what he knows. Before long everything starts to come out in the wake of brutal murders which point directly at his client. Devlin's client is a landscaper with a talent for building mazes, and Devlin finds himself lost in a maze of lust and rage. Eve of Destruction is an engaging no-frills mystery with characters you can care about and an enjoyably complex plot.Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery.

Bank Manager Mark Brown sends nursery owner Steven Whyatt to Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin, in order to obtain legal advice on a matrimony problem. Steven unequivocally states that his spouse, Becky, is having an affair with his evidence being the cassette tapes from his wire tapping their phone. Though his potential client does not recognize the voice of Becky's lover, Harry does. He knows the other man is Dominic Revill, a staffing consultant.Since Harry's firm is about to lose their receptionist anyway, he goes to Revill on the pretense of hiring the man to fill the vacancy. However, what seems to be a simple case of marital infidelity takes a twist when Becky, Dominic, and a nanny are found murdered in a church and his client is the obvious suspect.If readers are willing to take a leap of faith, they will absolutely enjoy EVE OF DESTRUCTION. The story line is intriguing as the identity of who is doing what to whom remain a mystery in spite of the evidence to be found in the tapes that Harry listens to throughout the book. Harry is a wonderful character even though readers will wonder how he could naively accept at face value his client's Still, Martin Edwards has scribed a fabulous tale due to Harry's battered, but still ticking personality tossed inside a Rubik's Cube.Harriet Klausner