It’s hard to talk about The Motive without giving away too much of the mystery in the book. But I’ll do my best.

A house fire in San Francicso of a wealthy man and his fiancee turns out to be arson and murder. Seems the man was marrying a younger woman and planning to write the children out of his will. The prime suspect in the case is his daughter-in-law, Barbara, who is also having martial difficulties. In fact, she went and confronted the father about the will the day of the fire and was at the scene as the house burned.

She’s soon under suspicion and becomes the prime suspect.

Things aren’t helped when the mayor’s office intervenes and tries to put a different investigator on the crime since the deceased was a big campaign contributor.

The story is deceiving. It takes you one way only to change and go back another as the investigation deepens and the layers of the mystery are slowly unravelled. To say more is to give away the last half of the book and the twist at the end, which is not that unexpected really given the hints dropped in the first half. But the mystery itself does sustain the story and the novel is populated by characters who are interesting, compelling and will keep you interested.