Ugly Money — Philip Loraine

Writer Will Adams' peaceful life is interrupted by the sudden and not entirely welcome arrival on his doorstep of his young niece, Marisa, and her best friend Nick.

Marisa has learned from her parents, film director Jack Adams and his actress wife, Ruth, that Jack is not her real father and she is determined to find the man who is. Reluctantly Will agrees to help her but a shock awaits him: it looks as if Marisa's biological father is Scott Hartman, a fabulously wealthy recluse who has not been seen for years.

A near fatal accident, a false arrest, hostility from Hartman's associate … it is becoming clear that someone wants to prevent Marisa from meeting her father. The stakes are raised still further when, through her mother, Hartman is actually tracked down and is confronted with his daughter. A bitter man, with a life of regret behind him, he decides to change his will in Marisa's favour â€" a move that is to unleash a wave of violence that threatens to engulf not just Marisa, but her family.

Ugly Money is an unputdownable story of intrigue, jealousy and murder which will have the reader gripped from beginning to end.