I've read several of Sidney Sheldon's books now and Bloodline sticks in my mind as a cracker. The Sky is Falling is a good story but the thing that drove me a little to destraction was how this television anchor woman was able to crack the case so efficiently.

Dana is the anchor woman although she has been a roving news reporter: most famously in Sarajevo we are told more than once. Dana is also unmarried and adopted a child who is missing an arm whilst in Bosnia.

The child, Kemal, is a problem and causes problems but it seems clear that he is a problem because she is a problem mother: successful at work but unsuccessful as a mother. So, Kemal is naughty at school and is eventually expelled. The missing limb and the fact that Kemal is a foreigner makes him stand out from the crowd and that doesn't help him at all.

The main thrust of the story is that an entire family has died over the course of a year: they were a rich and successful and likeable family from the upper echelons of American political life.

Only Dana thinks they were murdered! Only Dana is investigating the crime. No one wants to believe that anyone would want to kill that family.

Dana is right, though, they are all dead; and they did all die curiously near to each other in time.

Dana travels the world, sees people she shouldn't see and makes assessments she shouldn't make. The interviews she carries out, though, are a bit of a laugh.

Sheldon has us believe that she travels to France and, having secured an interview with someone who just doesn't give interviews, spends two minutes with them and asks, do you think Gary Winthrop was murderd? The answer she gets is, no ... who would want to do such a thing. End of interview. There are many such incidents and they are the parts of the book that Sheldon does worst!

This book then behaves a bit like Sheldon's Are you Afraid of the Dark? A woman takes control of a situation and comes out alive at the other end when highly trained men would have failed.

The side trip to Russia is a fascination and if there's a grain of truth in it, well I'm shocked.

Doom, death and destruction, insiders plotting even more and the sub plot of a boyfriend having to spend time with his ex girlfriend (stunning model with everything to die for!).

All in all, the book was finishable; but I'm sorry to say that this book hasn't gone to the top of my must read list.

Duncan Williamson
30 April 2005