Blood was Thicker Than Water.

Julie Jones, the famous anchor of WSNY News-Channel Four of Syracuse, lived in terror. Her fear was that somebody, somehow, would discover the dark secret she so carefully had hidden deep under a ton of papers and red tape. For sixteen years her secret had seemed safe, only to become a source of income for a senator's blackguard brother who made a very good living from blackmailing his victims. He slept with married women and taped the encounters-Julie was not one of them, no . . . Harry, the blackmailer, had pictures from her past, and having them revealed to the public would have meant her daughter's destruction-the daughter she loved over and beyond anything else.

On the day she was bringing her payment, Harry was stabbed to death. It would have been a relief, but she had been in the hotel suite at the time of the murder, in the bathroom to be specific; and when she had come out to talk to Harry, he was dead!

Her finger-prints, her keys, everything would point to her as the perpetrator. She could not let this happen. At the scene of a crime, police would be called. She needed time, and to her surprise, who but her nemesis, her arch-enemy, came to her help.

Sean MacKenzie, the failed photograph-reporter, the dirty radio-disco, learned from his police scanner that a crime was committed and went to 'scoop' the crime site only to find his nemesis, Julie Jones, already there.

Though he felt there should be a story behind the lady's activities, he offered his help, and got her out of the hotel without mishap.

But he met her again, at the dead man's apartment, and the plot thickened. Once Sean met the daughter, he felt he could not in good conscience destroy the mother. Not to speak of the strange attraction and reaction that made them fantastic partners on the small screen as well as in bed.

If at the start they were enemies under a truce, they ended up best friends ready to give one's life for the other.

Beautifully written, the mystery once explained still keeps the reader enthralled, for the tragedy of the past must be solved before even thinking of a happy-ending. The fight against their reciprocal attraction makes the story go on at a fast pace and the solution is to everybody's satisfaction, even leaving a thread for a new plot, if the author so desires.

Reviewed By: Raluca Popov
(c) JULY 2004