BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION POINTS: ‘MISS TAKEN IDENTITY’ - contains plot spoilers!!
Warning:
This synopsis contains plot ‘spoilers’!
Read at your OWN RISK!
PLOT SYNOPSIS
Sixteen years’ ago, Annelisse took something that didn’t belong to her – her twin sister’s fiancé, Marc Pickford.
Now, time is running out for Annelisse. She’s pregnant, and it isn’t her husband’s. She can’t even pass the baby off as his, because Marc is the white, upper-class son of a peer, and Annelisse’s child will be as black as its handsome father, her long-time true love Detective Sergeant Phillip Fishmandatu.
Annelisse wants out of her loveless marriage-of-convenience, but she’s not leaving without her half of Marc Pickford’s fraudulently-acquired millions. She needs a quick, uncontested divorce, and the money to finance her legal costs and avaricious lifestyle until the Decree Absolute hits the doormat.
Who else can she turn to for a loan but her estranged identical twin, the high-flying Tammi?
Unbeknown to Annelisse, the intervening years have not been kind to Tammi Rivers. Since her abandonment at the altar, she’s no longer a City big-shot. She’s been reduced to a life of petty crime, pulling scams alongside the cunning, violent, and controlling Ricky McAllister, who swiftly realises swindling the clueless Pickfords out of everything they own will propel his criminal career into the stratosphere.
He makes a potentially lethal bargain with dangerous gangster Jimmy Chadwick, who agrees to finance the cost of the complex con in return for a hefty payment Ricky never intends to make.
As Ricky proficiently ropes his Marks, he is simultaneously hoodwinking both partner-in-crime Tammi and villainous patron Chadwick, ensuring he retains the full Pickford fortune for himself alone.
Characteristically over-confident, Ricky has reckoned without the innate resilience of Tammi Rivers, and the superlative investigative instinct of DS Fishmandatu.
A chance encounter with McAllister leads the perennially-suspicious detective to delve deeper, patiently piecing together the disparate clues, inching towards the astonishing truth.
At the very point McAllister’s plan reaches its climax, Fishmandatu unwittingly brings Ricky’s whole precariously-balanced house of cards tumbling down.
Comprehending the threat McAllister poses to his mistress and unborn child, Fishmandatu chases every possible lead to expose the motives and discover the whereabouts of the slippery trickster. His frantic digging brings him into contact with Tammi who, suspicions aroused by Fishmandatu’s questioning, sets off in pursuit of her double-crossing partner, with the dogged detective close behind.
Also after the hapless McAllister is Jimmy Chadwick himself, who’s done some digging of his own, and found out how very much of the true plan Ricky neglected to tell him.
Tammi is the first to find Ricky. Their encounter is swift, brutal, and fatal for the cocksure grifter.
Still tenaciously pursued by DS Fishmandatu, Tammi’s only option is to take Annelisse hostage in the hope it will stay Fishmandatu’s hand long enough for her to flee the country.
At the airport, the determined Detective finally catches up with Tammi, who is desperately clambering between the concrete structures of the multi-storey car parks to escape him, her powerless sister remaining her captive.
As Fishmandatu attempts to gain control over the escalating situation, one of the women tumbles over 60ft to her instant death – but there is some confusion. Which twin has fallen; which survived?
Only four people know for certain; Marc Pickford, who would recognise his wife anywhere; Jimmy Chadwick, who has followed Ricky’s trail of breadcrumbs to the incontrovertible truth; the surviving sister herself, who naturally isn’t telling; and, of course, poor, bewildered Phillip Fishmandatu, for whom life will never be the same again.
As the previously-defined boundaries between right and wrong blur irreversibly, Fishmandatu is persuaded to abandon every honourable value he once held dear to chase personal vengeance and considerable profit.
Accepting Chadwick’s commission to follow the remaining twin’s trail to the Caribbean, the story continues in the second book Smuggler’s Bluff, which focuses on Fishmandatu’s continued dice with the manipulative Rivers. Will she tempt him to take the ultimate risk and betray the menacing Chadwick, or will Fishmandatu hold firm and deliver his intimidating new boss the revenge and reward he craves?
After all he’s been through, is the fragile and unhinged Fishmandatu still a match for devious survivor Tammi, as the passion of the past and promise of the future combine to beguile the former detective into recklessness?
Points for discussion
Miss Taken Identity deals with the psychological control that can be exercised by one human being over another, and the extreme effects of coercion.
It also explores the character flaws within us all – no one is either completely good or utterly bad…even YOU…
Tammi Rivers outwardly seems the toughest of cookies…so why does she stay with Ricky McAllister? Is she afraid of him? Does she love him? Does she feel he rescued or imprisoned her?
Which twin is the ‘baddie’? Is Tammi truly evil? Is Annelisse as selfish as she seems?
Can you feel any compassion at all for Ricky McAllister? Do you believe he is trapped by his relationship with the gangster Jimmy Chadwick?
What do you think is the true nature of the connection between Jimmy and Ricky?
Is Ricky McAllister gay or straight? Does his sexuality have a bearing upon how he treats Tammi Rivers – e.g. his psychological and financial control, his objectification of her, the rape?
Phillip Fishmandatu’s attitude to women is surely his undoing – do you agree?
When faced with a life-threatening quandary, can you blame Nathan Palmer for the choices he made? Would you do the same?
Ricky has several opportunities to come clean to Tammi about his true plans. Despite the temptation to reveal all, he resists. Why? Is it simply greed, or is he secretly afraid of Tammi? Why might that be?
Do you think Phillip Fishmandatu will be corrupted by his professional association with Chadwick?