Making a killing in business is one thing – doing it for real is another.
In this thrilling detective story, Private Investigator Sam Dyke turns down a job that would require skills that he doesn’t have – patience, computer-literacy, tact. Then he finds that the skills he does have – tenacity, aggression, street-smarts – are exactly the ones he needs for his next case – hunting down a cold-blooded murderer who seems to know what his every step will be.
To solve the case Sam must negotiate with his ex-wife, cement a relationship with a new love, unravel an office-based financial fraud and fight off an arrogant murderer armed only with a pen-knife.
Altered Life is gripping, fast-paced, bitterly comic and introduces a tough new English private eye who knows what he wants and, usually, how to get it.
Sam is a private investigator from a working-class environment who works amongst the wealthy and privileged of the Cheshire set—those whose morals and levels of discretion are offensive to him and go against his own values, forged in a strong family environment. The mysteries he unravels become personal crusades against entitlement, wealth and the abuse of power. Although he doesn’t moralise, he gets angry when he sees people who lie, steal and murder to get their way. Like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade he has a clear view of what the world is actually like, but he nevertheless wants evil-doers set straight and will do what he can to help.