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Adler, Elizabeth

In a Heartbeat

London, Hodder & Stoughton (£16.99).

Zelda, Zelda, you've left me...I always wondered if you would go away - just the way you came, almost in a puff of smoke, leaving me bereft, and forever wondering ... Where are you ... Maybe I've died ... That's what this is ... and now you can't reach me. But I know you, how determined you are. You would find me even beyond he grave.

The heroine, and heroine is the operative word, of this unusual story of love and suspense is Melba Eloise Merrydew, a truckdriver, unconventional, beautiful, a single mother. Only a woman like that could sweep Ed Vincent off his feet and she did.

Ed Vincent is a property tycoon. Someone utterly ruthless tries to assassinate him and nearly succeeds. Throughout the book Vincent hovers between life and death in a New York hospital. We are privy to his thoughts, although we know that he has no idea what is happening outside his own mind. There is just a blind faith in the woman he loves and who loves him.

The policeman is Detective Marco Camelio and his ony clue is the name Vincent whispers, "Zelda".

Detective Marco Camelio and Mel team up hoping to find the key to the motive for the assassination in Vincent's hidden past. The assassin knows who Melba is and is determined to get her too.

Locations (familiar and exotic) are wonderfully described, the characters and the plot are unusual. A suspenseful plot and a touching love story are intertwined. The plot is a pageturner.

Married, with one daughter, Elizabeth Adler was born in Yorkshire and lives in California. She is the author of at least a dozen other novels.