In the opening paragraph of the novel a murderer describes the process of picking up an unknown girl in a club prior to strangling her, and admits to disposing of nine others in similar manner. The murderer then returns to Crestcote House, a gothic mansion which has been turned into a peaceful retreat for ‘artists of recognised stature’.
The community comprises an eccentric composer, a reclusive iron-worker, a beautiful sculptress, a discontented novelist, and three assorted painters, one female, two male. The lord of this remarkable manor is a philanderer, and the place is known locally (and not surprisingly) as Crackpot Castle. No one suspects, however, that one of the denizens is a serial killer.
And no one need ever have suspected if the killer had not elected to play a practical joke on fellow residents which led to a spate of lies, an unsuccessful blackmail attempt and another killing.
This time Chief Inspector Tom Pennard is very much on the scene. Under his questioning suspicion flickers like a will-o’-the-wisp from one person to the next, while all the time the murderer, anonymous and supposedly secure, offers the reader a first-hand commentary on the unfolding of events, leading to a dramatic unmasking in the final paragraphs of this cunningly plotted story.
Writer Will Adams’ peaceful life is interrupted by the sudden and not entirely welcome arrival on his doorstep of his young niece, Marisa, and her best friend Nick.
Marisa has learned from her parents, film director Jack Adams and his actress wife, Ruth, that Jack is not her real father and she is determined to find the man who is. Reluctantly Will agrees to help her but a shock awaits him: it looks as if Marisa’s biological father is Scott Hartman, a fabulously wealthy recluse who has not been seen for years.
A near fatal accident, a false arrest, hostility from Hartman’s associate it is becoming clear that someone wants to prevent Marisa from meeting her father. The stakes are raised still further when, through her mother, Hartman is actually tracked down and is confronted with his daughter. A bitter man, with a life of regret behind him, he decides to change his will in Marisa’s favour a move that is to unleash a wave of violence that threatens to engulf not just Marisa, but her family.
Ugly Money is an unputdownable story of intrigue, jealousy and murder which will have the reader gripped from beginning to end.