Maureen O'Brien

MAUREEN O'BRIEN is an accomplished actress who has starred on stage in the West End and throughout the country and on television where her roles range from Vicki in Dr Who to Elektra in the Oresteia. She has twice won the Sony Best Actress award for her work on radio and also has awards for audiobooks of which she continues to record a huge range. In 1987, encouraged by the production of a radio play GOING ON, she wrote her first novel CLOSE UP ON DEATH, and since then she has combined both careers.

Her play THE CUTTING (Bush Theatre) was nominated Best Play (London Fringe Awards) and Best Newcomer (Evening Standard Drama Awards) Her second novel DEADLY REFLECTION is about to become a feature film. Her most recent novel, the sixth, UNAUTHORISED DEPARTURE, was published in January 2003 by Little, Brown in the UK and by St. Martin's Press in New York.

When Detective Inspector John Bright leaves Britain to escape the aftermath of a murder investigation, the last thing he wants is to find himself embroiled in another one.

Bright put a notorious London gangland boss behind bars and now he is receiving menacing anonymous e-mails. His superiors recommend he take leave and lie low for a while and as his girlfriend Jude has been insisting on taking a holiday, Bright reluctantly agrees.

Driving through France, Bright and Jude stop over in Neufchatel, a small, sleepy town. Their hotel is run by the gruff, unwelcoming Louis and his flirtatious girlfriend, Mariela, who had travelled from Mauritius to marry Louis. Because of family disapproval, the wedding had never happened.

When Mariela defiantly rides off into the night on the back of a local lad’s motorbike and fails to reappear the next morning, Bright and Jude think nothing of it. But then Mariela’s raped and mutilated body is found and Bright, who had taken a midnight walk when he couldn’t sleep, finds himself a prime suspect. His reaction is not to get involved, especially when faced with a police force whose rules and customs he doesn’t understand, but the longer he remains in custody, the more he realises that the best way to clear his name is to help find the killer.