A well-paced and tense novel with intriguing characters. A friendship between two women, poles apart in personality, is the basis for the story and inevitably their differences lead to events taking a sinister turn.
Rachel Doe is a shy accountant at a low ebb in life when she meets charismatic Ivy Schneider, née Wiseman, at her evening class and her life changes for the better. Ivy is her polar opposite: 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 naïve sense of fair play is no match for the manipulative qualities of the Wisemen women.
'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
Author
About Frances Fyfield
Frances Fyfield is a criminal lawyer, a trade she has used to huge success in many of her novels. She lives in London and in Deal, by the sea which is her passion. She has won several awards, including the Silver Dagger.
