If Tomorrow Never Ever Comes
On page 11 Tracy Whitney was on top of the world; She was young, beautiful and about to get married to rich, handsome Charles Stanhope. What could possibly go wrong? As a keen student of Sheldonia, I could have told her that quite a lot could go wrong. For a start "Charles" was a bad name, denoting inherited wealth and a dominating mother. Even Barnaby would be a better name. Plus, Charles referred to his parents as mother and father, another very bad sign.
Sure enough, but unbeknownst to Tracy, her mother had already killed herself on page 9, and by page 44 she (Tracy) had been framed for attempted murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison. On page 118, however, she was a free woman - free to exact revenge and to begin a new life as a confidence trickster.
Very soon, Tracy was moving in exalted circles and exotic locations like Château de Matigny at Cap d'Antibes: Here, the grounds were carefully manicured, the guests beautifully dressed and the servants smartly liveried. The glasses of champagne were endless (which must have made them rather difficult to drink out of) and the silver platters were Georgian (like the smartly liveried servants?).
Somewhere along the way, Tracy met another confidence trickster. This time the omens were good because he was called Jeff, a much more suitable name.
Sidney Sheldon was a mesmerising writer and, in his own way and in his chosen field, something of a genius. Quite how he managed to make the readers "suspend their disbelief" is a mystery to me. I think I am right in saying that his second novel entitled The Other Side of Midnight reamained on the New York Times best-seller list for 52 weeks.
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