Sandra Brown: French Silk

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This book has a Sidney Sheldon feel, with a heroine who has become successful despite a disturbed and difficult childhood leaving a bundle of secrets that she doesn't want to disclose. Sandra Brown has written a very easy-reading book made more entertaining by a few steamy relationships.

Claire Laurent has moved from a difficult childhood to build a lingerie catalogue empire from scratch.  Her successful business is being targeted by a powerful and unscrupulous fiery TV preacher Jackson Wilde who believes that her skimpy lingerie are the work of the devil. When Wilde is found murdered, because of his fierce crusade against her business Claire becomes a prime suspect.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Cassidy is driven to find the murderer and does everything he can to prove that Claire is involved. To protect her secrets, her mentally unbalanced mother and her closest friends, Claire is not able to tell Cassidy the whole truth. The big problem is that Cassidy is rapidly falling for Claire and can't pick out what is the truth and the lies.

Other suspects are Wilde's young wife, Ariel, and her stepson, Josh, who have been having an affair. Ariel decides to take over and build the family business and continues to stir up her flock against Claire's business.

I had difficulty in understanding why someone from the District Attorney's office and not the police was given the prime investigatory role when the police had not arrested any suspect for the murder. The plot was pretty complex and the killer turned out to be the last person you would expect and the reason was hardly explained.

This is one of several early books by Sandra Brown (this one is circa 1992) that are currently being released on Kindle. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.