Blood Relative

Peter Crookham, an unassuming architect, can’t believe his luck when the most beautiful woman in his practice, Marina Slavic, agrees to become his wife. All is going swimmingly until, one night, he arrives home to find his lovely wife covered in blood and his brother Andy stabbed to death on the floor. Marina is dispatched to a secure unit while Peter desperately sets out to clear her name. But what he begins to realise is that Marina is not innocent - she is not even who he thought she was - and Andy, a journalist, who was secretly investigating Marina’s past life in East Berlin, seems to have paid with his life for asking questions that someone doesn’t want answered. Unable to comprehend what is happening, Peter goes to Berlin in search of the truth about his wife, but what he finds is that his own life is in danger and that somehow the Stasi, the notorious former East German security service, is involved. The Stasi may have been disbanded, but some of its former agents still have horrific secrets to protect. This is the first psychological thriller that Thomas has written under his own name - readers may be familiar with his very successful Tom Cain thrillers - and very good it is, too.