The Price of Failure

Rating:
Summary: A chilling thriller
Review: Kidnappers enter the home of English Lord and Lady Awkwright and abduct their daughter, Victoria. For the next two months, the Awkwrights and the police receive no demands or even hear anything from the abductors. Two months later, Victoria is released, having been raped and infected with the HIV virus. The police, not knowing that this is the first gamut in a bigger plot, write the case off as the work of a bunch of amateurs, who failed to get a pence for their efforts.

The married Detective Constable Carr, who just became a father, becomes the victim of blackmail from the same group when he is caught gallivanting with a prostitute. He reveals to the kidnappers detailed information on police plans to catch them and protect a potential victim. Somehow, Carr knows he must find a way to do his professional duty without destroying his spouse, who already suffers from post natal depression.

Nobody today writes tighter thrillers with not one throw away word as well as Jeffrey Ashford. His current suspense novel, THE PRICE OF FAILURE, is a brilliant tale that readers will absolutely devour. Carr is a great character, facing a monumental moral dilemma that threatens to consume him. Trent, the leader of the villains, is one of the all time great criminals of fiction. This reviewer strongly recommends all the Ashford novels plus the Inspector Alvarez books (see A MAZE OF MURDERS, AN ARTISTIC WAY TO GO, and AN ARCADIAN DEATH, etc.) written under the pseudonym of Roderic Jeffries.

Harriet Klausner