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5/5 Stars!

Author K.J. McGillick has one speed… fast! And that’s how this reads begins when a gun-running deal goes awry and a two-year-old girl is shot and left for dead.

Fast-forward thirty years and that little girl is now Abigail Cooke, arts law attorney. Though a good family adopted Abby, she’s still always been at odds with her past, wondering why her family left her to die and why they never looked for her.

When a young woman is found murdered in South Boston, government records identify her as Abby. However, when Abby is found alive, further investigating by the FBI proves the dead woman to be Abby’s biological twin, Aisling Dolan.

This information leads Abby on an international journey to find her family and find out why she was abandoned. What she finds is a family enmeshed in international art forgeries/thefts, human trafficking, and murder.

As each person Abby seeks out ends up murdered, she’s suddenly a person of interest, and she doesn’t know why. She wrongly believes if she finds the paintings and returns them to the rightful owner, he’ll be satisfied and she can continue to sort out her tragic past and find a living connection between her and Aisling. But Abby is wrong. He wants the paintings, and he wants her dead.

A strong, solid plot and a likable protagonist made this an enjoyable read that kept me turning pages. Abby Clarke is equal parts a business professional, a take-no-prisoners heroine, and a broken little girl. While she is a successful professional, it’s the broken little girl which keeps her from enjoying a full life.

Fortunately, Abby has the ultimate support network in Maura, a psychiatrist and her lifelong best friend, Edna, her personal assistant, and her grandma Stasha—all three equally strong women who didn’t back down from anything. I have no problem imagining Edna and Stasha opening a detective agency! Those two! HA!

Trying to keep straight the good guys from the bad guys kept me confused right up to the end… and what an ending! This appears to be a standalone read, but I wouldn’t mind reading more about Abby and her crew… and what happens between her and Alessandro.

Enjoy!

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Blurb:

When art law attorney Abigail Clarke is mistaken for the murdered twin sister she never knew existed, will she be able to outwit a man determined to kill every member of her treacherous family.

Thirty years ago, during a thunderstorm, on an isolated street in South Boston, an unidentified two-year-old girl was discovered, abandoned, shot, barely clinging to life. After a thorough investigation, the case was eventually designated to the cold case files until Abigail Clarke, now an astraphobic art law attorney, is mistaken for the murdered twin sister she never knew existed.

What the FBI Art Crime Division cannot determine is if Abigail is an innocent bystander or a co-conspirator in her sister’s art fraud crimes.

Compelled to uncover all her family’s secrets, nothing prepares Abigail for the disastrous meeting with her murderous brother and crime boss father. Her life is irreversibly changed the more she becomes mired in her family’s treachery. She soon finds herself drawn into a game of cat and mouse by the vengeful killer who methodically plans to execute every member of her family, holding each one of them ultimately responsible for the murder of his own family thirty years ago.

Buy Links (Kindle Unlimited):

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3Kf74nP

Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/3I8913r

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3A32Drl

Amazon AU: https://amzn.to/3fsB41u