When Nadia’s godfather dies, she is convinced the police have got it all wrong. There is no way the old man could have accidentally fallen down those stairs. Unlike the police, Nadia knows her godfather was terrified of those stairs. So much so that he would often wait until his next visitor arrived to send them down to the cellar in his stead. Never one to shy away from confrontation, Nadia says as much to anyone who will listen. Her questions attract the attention of the decidedly wrong sort of people, and she is soon caught up in a race to solve the mystery surrounding his death or risk becoming a victim herself. Her investigations take her deep into her beloved godfather’s not so innocent past, and up against her own brother and mother. Before long, Nadia doesn’t know if she really wants to understand what happened to her godfather, but she fears what will happen to her if she fails.
The Altar Girl is a fast paced mystery/thriller that kept me reading well past bedtime. Nadia’s upbringing and her godfather’s past are heartbreaking and yet somehow also triumphant. Nadia’s pursuers are ever at her heels, creating an urgency to the story that makes it almost impossible to put down. The mystery of the godfather’s death has enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing almost right up to the end of the book. Are the criminals chasing her responsible for the ‘accident’? Could Nadia’s brother really have been the culprit? Is Nadia only creating a fantasy to protect the image she has of a saintly godfather? And yet, at the end, it is apparent the answers were there all along, hidden amongst the complicated layers that made up her godfather’s complicated life.
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