Mel Green is attending the graduation from college of Isla Green, in New York. Mel knows Isla is her stepdaughter; but as far as Isla knows, Mel has been dead for twenty years. Living under an assumed identity, Mel has been hiding from THE CLIENTS of a firm she ran with her husband. They were stashing money for investors in the Cayman Islands, back in the days when she was a con artist.

Mel survived the destruction of the Twin Towers where the business was based, decided to go missing, and took the name Mandy Gates. She started over in a town in Idaho and quietly teaches maths. But learning that her beloved stepdaughter’s big day was coming up, she just had to sneak into the ceremony. That proves her undoing. Her former husband – still is since they never divorced – suspected she was alive, and more than one other person is also interested. Dangerous people. If they can’t find Mel, and a file she may have retained, they’ll let her husband Sid do it for them.

That’s the premise, but quickly THE CLIENTS becomes so twisted with lies, cons, and chases that I found it hard to keep matters straight. I was starting to like Mel / Mandy, who seemed to have reformed and was doing good for society. But the author has bravely written her as an antiheroine. Within a few pages she’s lying her head off, conning random strangers out of money, and she persuades a young man she knows from Idaho, Riley, to break into a house in the dark, which seems unlikely. Several times I wanted Mel to say, “I did wrong, but I’m not that person anymore.” But that’s not the point the author wants to make.

This is a strongly described and fast-moving crime story, with frequent violence. The point of view shifts between chapters. Mel is described as just one of many women needing to escape from their partners. This helps to get us on her side. The only person I came out cheering for is Isla, who later plays a major role. Much of the tale occurs in NYC and part of it back in mountainous Idaho, a nice contrast and a change of pace. Author Bonny Fawn is a professor of business, and her fiction debut THE CLIENTS proves that business can be anything but boring. Readers looking for an unusual romantic suspense should pick up THE CLIENTS, for plot twists, con artists, and narrow escapes.

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