As the story opens, Camilla is attempting to have Ralph Benning, a committed and brutal batterer of women, sentenced as a repeat offender. The Crown is prepared to have him declared a dangerous offender, which would seemingly put him away forever. However, Benning escapes from custody and all of his prior victims now live in terror.

In an earlier trial, Camilla had represented Benning’s mistress, Lindsay Grace, and she and Elaine are now the only two who know her address. Camilla thus puts in place an elaborate strategy to get to Lindsay to protect her. Camilla is certain Benning will trail her to find the location.

The hunt for Benning is on with about every law enforcement agency in Canada involved. The players begin to disappear through unexpected murders, and the survivors become the targets of suspicion. Alvin, who is jaunty, sarcastic and too far out to be truly funny, nevertheless ends up being arrested for his role. Camilla drafts her friend Merv, a RMCP presently on sick leave, to help her guard Lindsay.

Camilla has been widowed four years and in that time has collected a lot of platonic male friends. It’s not clear to this first time Maffini reader how many of these friendships were acquired in the first novel, but there must have been many since little time is devoted to any character development in this story.

The plot itself is complicated enough, and has some interesting twists with a fairly predictable result. The book, however, lacks any pretense of pacing. Camilla dashes from place to place, scheme to scheme at a frenetic speed. Scene descriptions are sparse as the author relies totally upon the dialogue to carry the plot. And that is troubling. Fictional, seriously tortured and battered women have rarely been placed in such an atmosphere of “witty, acerbic” characters.

Using heavy-handed sarcasm and wit in highlighting the dilemmas of battered terrified women results, in this case, in a diminution of their plight. While I’m sure it was not intended that way, it is an unfortunate and reasonable consequence.

--Thea Davis