A.R.R - A Feeling In My Bones by Gervase Shorter

Apologies for the lack of link to Goodreads, I am currently in Spain (holibags time and sun) and the connection is a nightmare so I have to just upload the text and if the connection picks up I will upload it via Goodreads otherwise I will need to do it from home when I get back. *now fixed*


A Feeling in My Bones by Gervase Shorter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Time taken to read - 2 days

Blurb From Goodreads

Jake Forrester, is recruited by Harvey Baum, a Miami based business associate, to carry out an assignment for Cyrus Kroger, a reclusive billionaire, at his heavily guarded property in the Catskills. In a series of emails to his wife Sally, Jake describes his increasingly close friendship with the septuagenarian Kroger but Jake suddenly disappears and Baum says he is out of contact, visiting Kroger´s operations in Central Africa. Shortly after Jake´s disappearance Baum phones Sally to say Kroger has fallen ill and died and then, a month later, he phones again, this time to say Jake is back in Miami but in a clinic suffering from a nervous breakdown.

Sally flies to Miami and brings Jake home. She notices there are no visas or stamps in his passport indicating a visit to Central Africa. Jake gradually returns to normal but his relationship with Sally does not regain its old warmth. Whatever happened in the month Jake disappeared brings him vast wealth but Sally is worried because she finds he is growing increasingly nervous and suspicious.

Sally and Jake start getting used to being wealthy. She finds she is leaving her old life and friends behind. They move into a Park Lane penthouse and there Sally makes a discovery that brings her whole world crashing down. She starts investigating and what she discovers makes her afraid for her life.

My review

Sally is our main character, living a happy life with her husband Jake and their dog Waldo. Jakes career sees him doing different jobs and their income going from lavish and over the top to barely making ends meet but it always works out. Jake's most recent deal falls through and it looks like they will have to sell their house just to get by when a once in a lifetime job offer comes in but it is top secret, even from Sally. Jake accepts and everything they know changes, including Jake and Sally knows that something just isn't right.

The story itself jumps a fair bit, it starts with Sally on the run fearing for her life but quickly goes back to the beginning of how she and Jake met and everything mundane in between. It is very slow going and drawn out until chapter 6 when Jake disappears, I thought then that the story would turn into a whirlwind or intrigue and violence but it didn't. Instead it goes along again slowly with Sally's day to day goings (introducing us to her clients and their lives), her interactions with Jake (or rather lack of them) and how she tackles day to day life with their new life.

Whilst I did enjoy this story and the twist a quarter of the way to the end is fabulous (I never guessed for a minute), I like my crime books to have more speed and action. Sally annoyed me often rambling on about things I found rather bland and boring and some of her sayings irritated me, for example "Suddenly I had the embryo of a plan" and a few others of the like. The author has brought her character to life really well, to me she came across as an older English lady who is somewhat pompous but still likable despite the stupidity of a lot of her actions.

This is my first encounter with this author and I would like to thank them for the opportunity to read their work. Despite a few issues as listed I did like the book and will be reading the others, 3/5 for me this time.

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