Last Known Address.

MALCOLM FORSYTHE

Publication: Severn House, 2001, Surrey

First edition. Fine in dust jacket. Amy Foster’s granddad dies unexpectedly and there’s no money to bury him, so the orphaned youngster decides on burglary as a career. Unfortunately, she picks on stately Hawkhills just as its owners, first cousins Rick and Drusilla Layton, return home. With an unscrupulous gleam in their eyes, the Laytons give her room, board, a makeover, and a job. Amy is soon, uncomfortably, posing nude for artist Drusilla and overhearing Rick put the moves on Harry Weston’s wife, Yvonne, in the hopes that she’ll convince Harry to sell him his computer firm. When Amy asks about the bars on her bedroom windows, she’s told that they were put there to protect dear old granny, now locked away in a nursing home. In the meantime, DCI Millison and DS Scobie are looking into the 12-year-old missing persons case of the former Layton’s au pair, Katrina Kovacs. While in Layton’s employ, Katrina communicated regularly with her father, who was incarcerated in a high security prison. Suddenly the weekly letters stopped arriving and the au pair's father is released from prison. Drusilla’s mom, Constance, insists that young Katrina simply disappeared, but when Harry is stabbed to death and an incriminating photograph is found in his safe, the detectives decide they have a double homicide on their hands! Present-day events seamlessly meld with past encounters as the sordid facts of Katrina's disappearance gradually emerge.

Inventory Number: 17138