Neptune King Investigates

In this the 7th book of the Neptune King series, Neptune and Rachel return from their honeymoon and it’s business as usual. In The Case of the Ugly Client, Bernie Taylor is set to inherit ten million pounds but only on the condition that she marries within a month of her father’s death. This presents a problem as she is incredibly ugly and she doesn’t want to marry someone who is just interested in her money. Her situation is not hopeless though because she is in love with an ex stable hand named Homer Heep, who left her father’s employ to seek his own fortune before marrying her. As there is a time limit, she enlists K & J’s help to find, clumsy well-meaning Homer. They find it fairly easy to track him as he leaves a less than favourable impression on those that employed him. They catch up to him eventually just as an attempt is made on Homer’s life. On the return journey a second attempt is made and when that fails, the train they’re on is derailed and they’re lucky to survive, unlike many of the other passengers. They realize this isn’t a simple missing person’s case and look for deeper motives behind the attacks. The Case of the Missing Goat tickles their funny bone a little and in this instance they find in favour of the goat and lie to their client, rather than return the missing animal to him. In The Case of the Blackmailed Politician, Shark prevents Becky’s father from killing himself. Forcing him to confide, he learns he is being blackmailed to the point of bankruptcy. Neptune sets himself up as a potential victim and it isn’t long before the blackmailers target him. To Rachel’s dismay and Neptune’s discomfort his plan of merely arresting them once they think they’ve drugged him is dismissed by the police as not being enough to get a conviction on the actual blackmail, so he has to go through with it and let them set him up and send him the damning photographs. Being a young normal healthy male he doesn’t think he can remain completely impervious while an attractive, naked woman clambers over him, he does the only thing he can. He lets them drug him. Fortunately Shark and Sergeant Castro are on hand to record the blackmailers’ conversation. Intrigue at the Academy sees Neptune and Shark enlist in the police force at the behest of Commissioner Chadworth to ferret out corruption at the cadet level. To bring themselves to the attention of the crooks as potential new recruits, they smuggle Rachel and Becky in who are pretending to be women of easy virtue. Neptune desperately missing Rachel convinces her to resume their marital relations in his dorm room, while Shark takes Becky outside. Shark is sprung by Sergeant Thompson (which is what they want) and is taken back to the dorm. Thompson kicks their room door in and catching Neptune and Rachel in a compromising situation, much to her shame and horror. They are soon enlisted by the corrupt members at the academy and ordered to steal the manuscript being written by Kopeg, one of the civilian instructors. Neptune reads the manuscript and finds reference to the death of a student. It doesn’t take them long to connect the dots and realized the student was murdered because he wanted no part of the corruption. It all comes to a head on the Academy’s open day. Rachel and Rebecca come as themselves, along with Commissioner Chadworth. Knowing there is an attempt planned on Kopeg’s life, Shark and Becky escort him to the dorm until the crooks are rounded up, only to encounter the self-defence instructor, an overgrown thug whose had it in for Shark since day one. He’s a killer, armed and dangerous. When Shark manages to disarm him, he grabs Becky and threatens her life, causing Shark to retaliate the only way possible—lethally. It is only now, when he almost loses her that Shark realizes just how important Rebecca is to him and takes the plunge, declaring his true feelings for her.