Retribution!: a gripping and explosive crime thriller full of twists

by Elizabeth Ducie

Punish the guilty. Protect the innocent.

Framed for murder on the day of her wedding, Charlie Jones is living a nightmare. While her sister, Suzanne, and their friends search for the true killer, Charlie is forced to confront her a past she's kept hidden for more than three decades. Can Charlie save herself without losing everyone she loves. And who is the man in the black jacket?

The final explosive investigation for the Jones sisters.

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2024

About the author

I was born and brought up in Birmingham. As a teenager, I won a holiday to France, Spain and Portugal for writing essays and poetry in a newspaper competition. Despite this promising start in the literary world, I took scientific qualifications and spent more than thirty years as a manufacturing consultant, technical writer and small business owner, publishing a number of pharmaceutical text books and editing a technical journal along the way. I returned to creative writing in 2006 and since then, I have written short stories and poetry for competitions — and have had a few wins, several honourable mentions and some short-listing. I am also published in several anthologies.

Under the Chudleigh Phoenix Publications imprint, I have published four solo collections of short stories and co-authored another two. I also write and lecture on business skills for writers running their own small business. My debut novel, Gorgito’s Ice Rink, which was published in 2014, was Runner Up in Writing Magazine's 2015 Self-Published Book of the Year Awards. In August 2018, it received a Chill With A Book Award. My second novel, Counterfeit!, was published in 2016. It is the first in a series of international thrillers. It came third in the Literature Works 2015 First Page Writing Prize. The second in the series, Deception!, came out in September 2017, and Corruption! came a year later. The fourth and final part of the series will be published in September 2024. In the meantime, I have written the Coombesford Chronicles, a series of cosy crime, set in and English village.

Having left Birmingham to study in London, I lived for more than twenty years in Wilmington, Kent. In 2007, I moved to the South West of England, where I live with my husband, Michael, in a converted granary sited picturesquely on the banks of, and occasionally within the path of, a small stream. In 2012 I graduated from Exeter University with an MA in Creative Writing and closed down my technical consultancy in order to concentrate full-time on my writing.

I was editor of the Chudleigh Phoenix Community Magazine, a monthly online newsletter for fourteen years, finishing in 2023. I am a member of the Chudleigh Writers' Circle and was one of the organisers of the annual Chudleigh Literary Festival which ran from 2011 to 2019. I was Director of the Exeter Literary Festival for 2020 and 2021. I am also a member of Exeter Writers, South Hams Authors' Network, Teignmouth Writers and the Women in Publishing community in the US. I spend far too much time on Facebook and Twitter, but have met some wonderful members of the writing community as a result.

When I am not writing, I am a keen reader and singer. I also enjoy live theatre of any kind, share with my husband a love of fine dining, and am a real sucker for the kind of country house hotel where you can kick off your shoes and curl up with a book in front of a log fire.

I would like you to believe I am also a keen walker, enjoying the beauties of Dartmoor and the South Devon coastline—but, as a writer, I'm good at making things up.

Reviews

[Eileen Joyce-Donovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an exciting story. A thriller, mystery, spy novel all wrapped up in one. I read it in one sitting simply because I couldn't put it down.

Some of the characters were familiar to me since I've read the Coombesford series, but you don't have to have read them to read this book and enjoy it. Elizabeth is a master at weaving a story and throwing in so many unexpected twist and turns that you never know where the story will end or how or who the bad guy is and how he/she will end.

I highly recommend this book. It's a 5-star read.

[Pam Keevil · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fan of both the Jones’ sister thrillers and the cosy murder series set in Coombesford, what a delight to discover Elizabeth Ducie’s latest, Retribution, covers both. The book is brilliantly arranged in six parts. Part one covers the set-up of the murder up till the arrest of Charlie Jones, on her wedding day. It’s set in Coombesford so we are treated to the panoply of characters in the village and the delightful setting. But the prologue has already hinted at a more sinister turn and in subsequent parts we are whisked back into Charlie’s past life, before embarking on a page turning thriller as the familiar characters we know and love try to save their own lives and discover the truth. It’s a book full of tension and twists and turns and I will not give away the plot. It’s a great read and is there just a little hint that we might be hearing more from Esther and Rohan? I do hope so. Coombesford deserves many more murders to solve!

[Jacquie Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Jones has everything she wants in life: a peaceful home, good friends, and a dearly-loved daughter. She and her partner Annie are counting the days to their wedding. Then Charlie is caught up in a strange death on a train, and, even worse, arrested on her wedding day.
The past has caught up with Charlie, and as her sister Suzanne, her friends and former colleagues gather to help, mystery turns into mounting jeopardy, threatening Charlie and everyone she loves.
This fast-paced thriller builds on both Elizabeth Ducie’s original thriller series, and her cosy crime books. Thrills and spills mount, as the Jones sisters mine their busy past to solve the problem of who has framed Charlie Jones, now bringing lethal danger to their family.
Recommended for heart-racing action that will make you jump out of your skin!

[Pat Black-Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of the Coombesford cozy mystery series and adore Charlie and Annie, so when Charlie gets arrested .... on their wedding day, I wasn't too happy. And a murder charge! As Charlie later says to Annie, "This was a deliberate attempt to make a false case against me, to get me sent down for murder."
But the questions from the start are: Who set her up, how, and why? Those answers lead back to Charlie's background and everyone she dealt with in her line of work. This leads Suzanne, Charlie's sister, and others to investigate quite a range of characters with their own stories. But there's way more involved, and I don't want to be a spoiler other than to say that more than Charlie is at risk in this, causing the plot to thicken.
In all, it's a great read, a page-turner with unexpected twists and a mystery that will keep you guessing until the end.

[Marcia Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I have enjoyed several books by this author, this is the first Jones sisters book that I have read, and I loved it, so it didn’t matter at all that it is the fourth book in the series. Charlie Jones is looking forward to marrying Annie, the love of her life and bringing up their young daughter, Suzy, together, but their plans go awry when Charlie finds herself framed for murder. When matters go from bad to worse, Charlie’s sister, Suzanne, arrives to help clear her sister’s name. However, this is not so easy as the past catches up with Charlie and forces her to relive nightmares she thought she had left far behind. The book is well-written and draws the reader in from the very first page and I read it in a couple of days. Recommended.

[Yvonne Marrs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another awesome read from Elizabeth Ducie. Her characters are so well described, they seem to be real. Likewise, the action plays out in front of me, as the flow and tone of the writing is so vivid. I'm honoured to be a Beta reader for the author, and her books never disappoint! I won't give away any spoilers but I truly didn't see how Charlie was going to get out of each predicament. So very well written, so easily recommended to everyone!! 5 stars from me.

[Pam Sheppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

OKAAAAYYY... I pulled this from my TBR stack to give it a look during a bit of insomnia. Hours later, morning light filled the room and I caught the alarm before it went off. Whipped through the rest of the book while my to-do list got stale. I felt like a teenager again getting lost in a book for the whole day.

[A.C. Chinneck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this fourth book in the Jones’ sisters series. The many twists and turns in the story kept me gripped to the very last page. I particularly liked the link between the past and the present which skilfully rounded off the tale of the two sisters. I thoroughly recommend this book which is a tribute to Ms Ducie’s writing skills