Alison is a late twenty something Art History don at Oxford University. If that sounds glamorous, it’s not and she isn’t. She is an American and feels every one of the three thousand odd miles from home.

Lauren is a thief who uses sex to get what she wants. If that sounds glamorous, it is and she is. Lauren is, also, the main character in the pulp fiction books that Alison writes in her spare time and Alison’s fictional alter ego. Lauren is in trouble. She has stolen a package from David and he wants it back.

Alison is in trouble. She has to find her a way to get the permanent position at the university that she needs for her career. Late at night, while inspecting a priceless Rembrandt painting, Richard, her boss, offers her a way in when he offers her the job if she’ll have sex with him. Lauren would have no hesitation but Alison…  

Things go from bad to worse for Alison when some of the characters from her fiction seem to come to life. Is she losing her mind or is someone setting her up?

Finding the answer to this question becomes crucial when the Rembrandt painting is stolen and Alison is arrested for the crime. All the evidence points to her but Chief Inspector Beckett begins to suspect that not everything in this case is as straightforward as it seems....

This dual narrative thriller blurs the distinction between fiction and reality and is set in the fusty world of Oxford academia and a fictionalised neo-noirish London.

See photos of the shoot here