cover image Off Script

Off Script

Graham Hurley. Severn, $28.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8979-9

British author Hurley’s bizarre third Enora Andressen thriller (after 2019’s Sight Unseen) takes 40-ish actor Enora, a single mother and brain cancer survivor who sleuths on the side, from her posh London home to Exmouth, where she has been summoned by Carrie Tollman, the nurse for Enora’s blind, paraplegic former lover, Pavel Sieger. Carrie woke up one night recently to find a wild-eyed young man in her bedroom. He threatened to kill her if she mentioned him to anyone, just like he’d killed some unspecified others. Someone later fatally slashes Carrie’s stomach, and a prime suspect goes missing. Enora can’t resist gushing about soirees aboard a fabulous sailboat and visits to a deeply intimate spa as she closes in on a vicious killer. Enora also gets involved with a “big, broad-chested” Dutchman she meets at a pub, a typically impulsive move that lands her in trouble. This erratic outing is unlikely to win Enora new fans. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.). (June)