When Joyce Hetherington loses her half-sister in a tragic and mysterious railway accident, she calls on her old school friend, Greg Mason, to investigate. Greg has recently begun his own private detective agency and, together, the two uncover secret after secret about her past and the strange set of circumstances surrounding Helen’s death, including details about the inheritance that she was set to receive from her grandmother – an inheritance that was granted instead to an unknown beneficiary. As they sink deeper and deeper into the case, Greg and Joyce begin to realise that not everything is as it seems, and certain seemingly unrelated threads in her family story – some stretching as far back as World War II – have the potential to weave a web with far greater implications than either of them could have ever imagined.

Smart and fast-paced, with a compelling multitude of twists and turns, ‘Apportionment of Blame’ is a mystery thriller for the detective in all of us. Greg and Joyce are as new to the crime game as they are determined to see the case through to the end, and their constant questioning and deducing makes for a thoroughly engaging read.

Keith Redfern is currently retired and living in Ipswich with his wife, Rosemary. He is the author of ‘First Day Back’ (2010), which tells the back story of one of the characters in ‘Apportionment of Blame’.

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