Friends & Family: A Story of Violence in the City of Brotherly Love

Thomas Duncan Murdoch has a problem. He once co-signed a property loan with a friend, and now he is on the hook for twenty-four thousand dollars, which he doesn’t have. When he finds the property in question, he doesn’t find his friend Edward but a woman named Sally. Things start to go all wrong for Thomas when Sally is found dead in the local river and the police want to know why Thomas was at the condo where Sally resided.

Then Thomas finds out that someone is recording property titles in his name. He decides to cash in by taking out a loan against the properties. The criminals who have been acquiring the properties are not amused. Things snowball as bodies turn up, and police detective Richard Langdon tries to work out who is behind the murders. Thomas is one step ahead in the investigation since he has started a new job at an investment firm that just might be connected to the property deals.

Friends & Family was a good, original story. It was fast paced, which I liked since that kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. I liked that the story constantly moved forward and that there was never a dull moment. I particularly liked that it was full of energy and that I didn’t know how it would turn out until the end. Frankly, I could hardly put it down. But, I have to say that I didn’t always enjoy the fact that Thomas spoke so often directly to the reader. I felt that sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t, at least for me. Having said that, I did enjoy seeing the action from Thomas’ perspective.

I didn’t like the fact that every time a character spoke, the author used the form “this is Sally” or “this is Hippo.” I’m not sure why this method was used over and over, but I found it a bit repetitive. I think that the British character Nigel/Leslie could have appeared more British. Most Brits would never dream of saying “yes, sir” or “no, sir” to someone unless they were in a servile relationship with that person, which made the character seem too American to me, especially when he was speaking with detective Langdon. Otherwise, I found this to be a highly entertaining story, and I would definitely read something by this author again.