Imagine you suddenly find yourself in a lovely country cottage where all the bills are automatically paid, there is a Porsche in the garage, and an unlimited amount of money you can use to live comfortably on for the rest of your life. Oh yes, and the only person you have come upon is lying peacefully in the upstairs bedroom - dead! Would you go immediately to the authorities, or try to find a way to keep this dream situation for yourself? That is the predicament Abigail West finds herself in in Andy J W Davie's thriller novel, Abigail's Lover.

Abigail literally crashes into this lovely, but gruesome scenario when she is out driving the country roads trying to forget her lover of eighteen months who forgot to mention he was married. After exploring the house, she finds a skeleton in the upstairs bedroom and months of unopened mail piling up in the front porch. Reading the mail, she discovers unsigned bank and credit cards, as well as a huge bank account that the bills are being paid out of automatically. The name, Alan Collier, is on these documents and she believes him to be the dead occupant of the bed upstairs. Since leaving her boyfriend has left her jobless and homeless, she devises a plan to stay on in the house for the time being, pretending to be the owner's girlfriend looking after the place. But when her best friend finds out about her situation, she urges Abigail to dig deeper into Mr. Collier's life in case he has any family to whom the money and house should go to. Grudgingly, Abigail agrees, and her search leads her to Florida where she finds herself an unwilling participant in an adventure of crime, deception, and intrigue.

Abigail's Lover is an interesting read from the first page. The author breaks the cardinal rule of novel writing by not using large amounts of dialog to hook the reader - and in this case, it works. He keeps the reader turning pages through the movements of the character, because you just can't wait to see what Abigail will do next. And just when you think Abigail is safe and sound, the author surprises you again in the last chapters.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a fun mystery/thriller.