London bridges - Jane Stevenson

Jane Stevenson's collection of novellas, SEVERAL DECEPTIONS, was one of the critical successes of 1999 - here is a gossipy, smart, critical intellectual, high spirited and literate voice, (TLS) If Stevenson never writes another word, she is already more than promising (SUNDAY TIMES), There is a sense that here we have only seen oen angle of her considerable talent (OBSERVER). LONDON BRIDGES, Stevensons first novel, evokes the mood and sheer enjoyability of classic English detective fiction, though it is set in the London of the 1990s. A young lawyer comes across a treasure lost in the Blitz, and is tempted into a series of crimes which end eventually in murder. Meanwhile, a very contemporary cast of characters assembles to confound him. The denouement of the intricate plot occurs in the Cotswolds, and invloves teddy bears, Greek monks, New Age Bikers and the source of the Thames, and the scintillating wit and intelligence that distinguished SEVERAL DECEPTIONS.