This was very excitable from the beginning, a debut author, EL Lindley, who let the need for tension dominate. It’s an excitable story: an unpredictable documentary producer, Georgie Connelly; a missing teenage girl; a silent ex-soldier; and a dodgy Russian businessman. At times, I wanted a breather from the tension, a slower build.

The plotting is clever and it’s a tight group of characters, I hope they will continue in book two. I particularly liked Mervyn the taxi driver. The sexual chemistry between Georgie and former US marine James is evident from day one, though on the page they snipe and squabble.

The novel is set in Los Angeles, though this is not immediate on the page. There is huge potential for this to be exploited in book two, I’d also like to see more of Georgie’s documentary production; in this book she just seems to sit in the office. So there’s lots to develop here for a likeable group of characters. There are three books in the series and I liked Business As Usual enough to want to read more.

One minor quibble, the manuscript would benefit from stricter copy editing.

Click here for EL Lindley’s blog.

If you like Business As Usual, try:-
The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus
The Blind Man of Seville by Robert Wilson

‘Business as Usual’ by EL Lindley, Georgie Connelly #1 [UK: EL Lindley] Buy now

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
BUSINESS AS USUAL by @LindleyE #bookreview via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ij