Independently wealthy former police officer Aud Torvingen has just traveled to Seattle to deal with an unscrupulous property manager and also to meet her mother's new husband. Aud is unsure of this reunion with her mother since their relationship has always been somewhat distant. Most likely due in part to her mother's journey up the ladder of Norwegian politics and her duties as an ambassador. The property manager would be easier to deal with if only Aud was in her element in Atlanta. Seattle is foreign territory to her and she needs to get her bearings quickly to assess the situation.

Flashback chapters show the weekly meeting of a self-defense class for women that Aud taught in Atlanta. As each lesson occurs, we learn more about each woman, her reasons for attending the class and her fears. Throughout the lessons, they learn how to overcome the constraints society places on women and how to not be a victim. But will the lessons be enough when one of them is tested in real life?

There seems to be more to the shady business dealings in Seattle than is apparent on the surface. Will Aud be able to use her police background to unearth the reasons behind the sabotage occurring on a movie set in one of her buildings? How will dealing with her mother and her mother's new husband affect her investigations? And will Aud's attraction toward the set's caterer distract her from what's really happening? Coming one year after the death of Aud's last serious lover, Julia, will this budding relationship bear fruit?

ALWAYS has an unusual format. The chapters alternate between present-day events in Seattle and recent events from the self-defense class in Atlanta. The events in the two settings mirror each other, leading to dual crescendos at the very end. Ms. Griffith's novel is richly worded with very evocative visuals of the two settings. Third in the Aud Torvingen series, this book can be followed by readers new to the series as I was. An enjoyable book for lovers of gritty mystery fiction.

Book Summary

From cult phenomenon to award-winning literary sensation, "the sexiest action figure since James Bond" (Seattle Weekly) returns in an exhilarating new thriller.

It doesn't matter how well trained you are, how big, how fast, how strong; there will always be someone out there bigger or faster or stronger. Always.

That's what Aud Torvingen teaches the students in her self-defense class. But the question is whether Aud really believes this lesson herself-and if not, what it will take for her to learn it.

Aud has trained herself to achieve a fierce, machine-like precision, in hand-to-hand combat as well as life. But in Always she is abruptly confronted with the limits of her own power. Her self-defense classes spin violently out of her grasp and, still reeling from the consequences, she embarks on a seemingly simple investigation of Seattle real estate fraud that pulls her into something far more complicated and dangerous than she had imagined.