The art of drowning - Frances Fyfield

Rachel Doe is a shy accountant at a low ebb in life when she meets charismatic Ivy Schneider, nee Wiseman, at her evening class and her life changes for the better. Ivy is her polar oppositte: strong, six years her senior and the romantic survivor of drug addiction, homelessness and the death of her child. Ivy does menial shift work, beholden to no one, and she inspires life; as do her farming parents, with their ramshackle house and its swan-filled lake, the lake where Ivy's daughter drowned. As Rachel grows closer to them all she learns how Ivy came to be married to Carl, the son of a WWII prisoner, as well as the true nature of that marriage to a bullying and ambitious lawyer who has become a judge and who denies her access to her surviving child. Rachel wants justice for Ivy, but Ivy has another agenda and Rachel's nave sense of fair play is no match for the manipulative qualities in the Wisemen women.

Frances Fyfield has spent much of her professional life practising as a criminal lawyer, work which has informed her highly acclaimed crime novels. She has been the recipient of both the Gold and Silver Crime Writers' Association Daggers. She is also a regular broadcaster on Radio 4, most recently as the presenter of the series 'Tales from the Stave'. She lives in London and in Deal, overlooking the sea which is her passion.

With The Art of Drowning, Fyfield proves once again that she's on top form...no crime writer can beat her... a climax that surprises, shocks and leaves the reader exhausted and exhilarated.
Marcel Berlins, The Times

'The Art of Drowning shows Frances Fyfield at her best...a skillfully plotted story by one of our most elegant crime writers, piling on the suspense, right up to the unpredictable climax
Sunday Telegraph