The Pact

Eve Weston's younger brother is in jail, her cancer-ridden father has committed suicide and she's been fired from her job for something she didn't do—then things get really complicated for the 34-year-old former legal secretary in Kray's skillful if overlong sophomore effort (after 2006's The Debt ). The collateral damage piles up while Eve, who's moved from London to her father's flat in Norwich, struggles to unravel the myriad skeins that tangle her life: her brother's real role in the robbery he was sentenced for; the meaning of her father's death; the handsome policeman wooing her; the packages she's guarding for the con protecting her brother and the mysterious item that someone named Joe thinks she is hiding. Though Kray choreographs too many unlikely convergences, she delivers well-drawn minor characters and a resilient, appealing heroine who uses brains and beauty to deal with the devils that beset her. (Mar.)