Outside Influence

By Lucy Abelson

Friendship is the core of Outside Influence. Loyalty is taken for granted by members of the select Elmsleigh Park golf club. They vet anyone who joins. Though insiders may like one person more than another, trust is the essence of belonging, so turmoil ensues when club members suspect a traitor in their midst.
Worry starts over a spate of robberies from the Visitors’ car park. Fears arise these thefts might be sparked by tip offs from someone involved in the club. Was there an ulterior motive when a vital part was stolen from an important Russian visitor’s car? A Russian member, Yuri Leonov, insists his guest, Nicolas Roman, was deliberately targeted, for Nicholas whose black curly moustache makes him look like his Romanov ancestor Czar Peter the Great, is a distant relative of golf playing Prince Andrew.
To investigate the thefts, the club’s ruling committee, hire a detective agency, which unbeknown to the club, employs Sam, their Lady Captain; she is a journalist who moonlights as a store detective. Reluctantly she takes the job. She also has to agree to investigate a beggar who frequently loiters on a public right of way alongside the Visitors’ car park. Could this ragged old man who makes strange remarks about his own connection with the club be involved? Whilst playing golf Sam see him going into a shed in the club’s grounds, which on investigation, she finds has some unusual contents including a bed.
To disguise her detective work, Sam plans a party which she hopes will stimulate gossip. For help she asks her beautiful friend Crystal, a famous blonde model. Sam wants her to join Elmsleigh Park, but Crystal is concerned about meeting men she dubs “rich trash”, especially Ozzie Reynolds, with whom she had a nasty encounter on a model shoot. Sam is keen to talk to him because like his friend Yuri Leonov, Ozzie has a financial interest in the club. They also both deal in metals which can be found in the parts stolen from cars.
Unfortunately the party is blighted by Yuri Leonov’s sudden death. Ekaterina, Yuri’s glamourous, extravert wife is convinced he was poisoned at the last meal he ate at the club. Yet the Post Mortem reveals Yuri’s death was caused by ingesting antimony, the metal he mines in Russia.
Sam’s workload increases as she has to investigate Yuri’s death. There are other people who believe Yuri’s death was no accident, because it is rumoured, he was a Russian spy. Accusations fly about causing violence involving Jason, Crystal’s partner, a club member who once fought with the parachute regiment. As tension mounts involving the loyal club staff as well as Roger Turpin, the orthopaedic surgeon who is the current Elmsleigh Park Captain, the high-powered lawyers and diplomats who are prominent members, another death takes place on the club premises. Again Sam must investigate. Now she has to clear herself too, even fight to save her own life, but an unexpected ally helps rescue her so she is able to identify the real culprit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lucy Abelson
• Release date: Nov 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005518332

Lucy Abelson

Lucy Abelson was born in a small English village in the county of Norfolk. She grew up in Kent where her father ran a small tutorial establishment and her mother was a doctor. Since her parents met on the golf course playing mixed foursomes, the Wildernesse country club played a big part in family life for Lucy and her two brothers. Ever the embryo journalist, Lucy listened avidly to her parents discussions about the various issues and sometimes scandals that beset the local golf world.Lucy spent much of her time outside school in the children's corner of the Sevenoaks bookshop. There she won a general knowledge competition set by the bookshop. This led to a ceremony with the renowned children's author Noel Streatfield presenting the prizes. On hearing the ten year old wanted to be a "writer like you" when she grew up, the great author responded, to hoots of laughter from the assembled grown-ups, "this little girl wants to steal my job". The late Noel might be glad to know the adult Lucy writes mostly crime novels, specialising in the golf world.Her writing career started in her school days when she contributed to magazines. Rebelling against her intellectual family, she eschewed going to university because she had a fixation with writing about "real people" so she was delighted to start a career in magazine journalism writing on a variety of subjects from travel to celebrity interviews and general features. She progressed on to newspapers writing a finance for women column for the Sunday Telegraph from where she moved to the Sunday Express initially writing for the financial pages, specialising in interviews. After her third child was born handicapped, to look after her, Lucy gave up office work but accepted an offer to write a domestic column from home.Now her children are grown-up, Lucy has returned to her first ambition, to write fiction. She is now an enthusiastic amateur golfer and has spent some time as a referee, which together with her inherited experience of the game has put her in a good position to be a doyen of the golf novel.

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