The Odessa Bride

Peter Enfield doesn’t believe in good fortune, as he say’s, “all you have to do is sit in one place minding your own business and the world pisses on you” But even a cynic would have to admit that Peter’s guardian angel is permanently on strike. Nothing he can do seems to change the endless stream of misfortune that besets him – his son’s illness, his job insecurity, his ability to attract crises when he can least cope with them, all appears to be fate laughing at him. He is severely injured when his car gets side-swiped after which a major accident kills everyone in his family and leaves him on a long and traumatic road to recovery. The only person he can rely on is Isaac, the one man that held his sanity together when he lost his family – yet even Isaac has his secrets. It’s only when he is discharged from hospital with the insurance pay-out cheques in his pocket that he can remodel his life. But even with a determination to make good, his fate is not in his hands and he buys a house with an unusual background. Hidden in the pool house is a secret room still fitted out with a computer and sundry photographs. The computer is still linked to an Odessa based mail-order marriage website and the one time recipient is apparently still waiting for a reply to some cryptic messages from a very attractive woman. The outcome sees him attempting to extricate himself from being dragged into a security agency operation for an illegally diverted weapons shipment. Rather than escaping his old life, he is sucked into episodes of extreme danger and personally traumatic events. Except for Isaac, Peter learns how to frustrate fate from all the people he encounters in his new life and proves himself to be no jinx – indeed, eventually his life threatening experiences strengthen his resilience and teaches him that he is far more than simply one of life’s victims.