Gold Digger by Francis Fyfield

An answer to the quiz question ‘crime novels with the same title as Kanye West songs,' but otherwise this is a solid but not very memorable story. Curious, because it does have a novel premise – a rich old man, Thomas Porteous, is dying. Di, his much younger wife, fears that his family will come to claim his possessions after they die, accusing her of being a gold digger.

She isn’t, quite, because Porteous’s wealth is mostly held in the form of rare paintings, which she also appreciates. But she met Porteous because she was a cat burglar, come to rob him. It’s a nice setup, because it establishes that her motives were, at least initially, mercenary, but also that she had enough of a bond with her husband for that to have changed.

It shows she has a skillset that might (and no spoiler really, it does) come in handy when the relatives turn up. And it also establishes that, though they may be venal, nasty characters, the family may have a point. The premise is dutifully worked through, and though the prose is fairly plain and the dialogue occasionally clunky, the book moves to  a satisfying, if predictable, conclusion. [John Inglis]