A Passionate Affair, Lost Love, Family Intrigue, a Suspicious Death
Michael Parker is dying. He has had a good life and done well for himself. Now, alone, save for his loyal housekeeper, Smithy, he reminisces on a wonderful love affair he had in the summer of 1965. Dianne was an archaeology student on study leave at the British Museum when they met. Then, one day after a passionate affair, she left, never to be heard of again. Her flatmates said she was pregnant, but Michael did not believe that at the time. Now at 75, with only six months to live, he asks his solicitors to send him someone who can find Dianne, and find the truth, before he dies.
James Lacey works as a solicitor's clerk at Morris, Stern and Wicks, and is sent to see Michael Parker. James thinks the visit will be a waste of time, but after hearing Michael's story, is slowly and surely drawn into the mystery, as to where, and if, Dianne is alive. Michael gives James money for travelling, and a Letter to give to Dianne, for if and when he finds her. With the help of James's girlfriend, Jane, and his friend Jonathan, the Letter travels with James to Ireland, Paris, Pakistan, India and Spain.
They meet old friends and colleges of Dianne, but why is the trail hard to follow. Why is this lady, if she is alive, wanting to keep her whereabouts secret. No one whom she worked with seems to be willing to talk to James, or confirm her existence. James travels far and wide to unravel the mystery that is Dianne Holland, but also discovers secrets about his own relatives on a visit to India.
Can James Lacey juggle all of these events as well as coming to terms with his own personal anxieties?
I started writing my first novel, Columbus Day, over ten years ago, with the insane idea of supplementing my pension. I now know that was a pipe-dream, but I have learnt a lot along the way on this rocky road called publishing. It was a few years later I had another idea for a second book, The Letter, a light romantic adventure taking the main characters to Ireland, France, Spain and India. Some of my travel experiences are peppered in these books and like many authors we draw on our own experiences, and this is something I was only able to achieve in later life. I could never had written these novels in my twenties or thirties. Nothing Is Sacrosanct was my third novel, which takes on a much darker and dangerous theme than my first two romantic stories. It's a long complicated adventure spanning over five decades of a damaged boy from Austria at the end of the Second World War No One Is Sacrosanct, although not an official sequel, follows the original investigator and her husband out of retirement to solve what looks like the same MO of the main character in the preceding novel. Recently I published a children's novel, The Wrong Cheese, (8 - 11) partly for my grandchildren, when they can read for themselves, and partly to see if I could write at a different level. This is published under a pen name of David Morton.
