Joy Cecilia Dart-Thornton Americans are dying

Americans are dying

is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie

North London in the twenty-first century: a place where a son will swiftly adopt an old lady and take her home from hospital to impersonate his dear departed mother

he'll sell her the lot

or her daughter

Joy Cecilia Dart-Thornton Americans are dying'Did she jump? Did she fall? Will she wake?' On an ordinary Friday afternoon in the office, talented young lawyer Joy Stephens plummets forty feet onto a marble floor. In the shadow of this baffling event, the lives of those closest to her begin to collide and change in unexpected ways. There is Dennis, her disgraced husband, who finds consolation in books; her colleague Peter, whose refuge is a mix of hedonism and hard work; Barbara, Joy's prickly