A Conspiracy of Aunts by Sally Spencer

The past will always catch up with you… Robert – or Rob or Bobby as his aunts like to call him – is a child prodigy at bridge. After his mother was drowned at sea, the young master tactician was left to be brought up by her four responsibility-shirking sisters, Jacqueline, Peggy, Catherine and Sadie. All Rob remembers about his mother are her words of guiding wisdom, but unbeknownst to him, his aunts have made a solemn pact never to reveal exactly how his mother died. Finding himself in the reluctant care of his chain-smoking Aunt Catherine, Rob buries himself in his bridge. Head and shoulders above his adult partners, he is destined to become a Grand Master – and what could be better when life, he decides, is a bit like a game of bridge? Taking his theory into the world, the young Rob sets out on the road of life. And as he grows he discovers that bridge is not his only talent: he also has success with the ladies – all of them except his wantonly neglectful aunts, of course! One by one the four women meet unfortunate ends and Rob, now a feted TV celebrity as well as a chess genius, lands on the doorstep of another woman: the ambitious reporter, Rosalyn. But while Robs star continues to rise, Rosalyn struggles, and the green-eyed monster of jealousy rears its ugly head. Fame as a reporter is all she craves, so she digs and digs until she discovers the secret of the pact that Rob’s aunts swore to each other. And it will have devastating consequences …