Murder gets jazzed up

Take My Breath Awayby Martin EdwardsAllison and Busby, 17.99Andrew Towler

Martin Edwards, Gazette columnist and head of employment at north-west firm Mace & Jones, has already written seven crime novels centring around lawyer Harry Devlin.

However, for his latest book, he has created two new central characters - both, unsurprisingly, with legal backgrounds.

The book starts off with Nic Gabriel, a lawyer turned writer who has been living off the royalties from a best-seller about Dr Crippen.

He thinks he may have struck upon something when his old friend, legal head-hunter Dylan Rees, invites him to a party with the promise of imparting information that links three apparently accidental, unrelated deaths.

However, before Dylan can pass on his wisdom, Nic can only watch as his friend is murdered in cold blood by a former lover who supposedly committed suicide years before and who then turns a knife on herself.

As Dylan fades away, he mutters the words 'Why not jazz?', setting Nic off on an investigation to find out what Dylan knew and why it had cost him his life.

This story alternates throughout the novel with that of Roxanne Wake, a newly employed paralegal at a leading London human rights firm called Creed.

It soon becomes clear that she is not all she appears to be and we follow her as she tries to keep others from finding out the truth about her terrible past.

As you leap between the two separate tales it becomes apparent that the leading characters are destined to meet in a dramatic finale.

The book is very readable, and you become fascinated by both characters as they follow their different paths to finding out the truth.

Concentrating on keeping the reader intrigued about how these two separate lives are intertwined in the same mystery, as opposed to making the novel a 'whodunit?', Mr Edwards ensures that when the answers do arrive, they come thick and fast and do not disappoint.