Until it's Over by Nicci French - Suspense floats in Air

The team of Nicci Gerard and Sean French provide a predictably involving and tense London-based thriller in “Until its over”. Nicci Gerrard was born in June 1958 in Worcestershire. After graduating with a first class honors degree in English Literature from Oxford University she began her first job -- working with emotionally disturbed children in Sheffield. Sean French was born in May 1959 in Bristol, to a British father and Swedish mother. He studied English Literature at Oxford University at the same time as Nicci, also graduating with a first class degree, but their paths didn't cross until 1990.

The first half is told from the point of view of Astrid Bell, a Young and athletic, London cycle courier who can't decide what to do with her life since graduating from university, so she has become a bike messenger until she can decide. She's happy in her lifestyle, living in a shared house with Pippa, an old university friend. Miles, the owner of the house and assorted other tenants. The action begins when Astrid has an accident on her bike, caused by an inattentive neighbour opening her car door without looking.

Shaken but not seriously hurt, Astrid is looked after by her housemates -- but shocked to discover later that the woman who caused the accident has been found dead by the dustbins outside her house. Then a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a millionaire's house in Hampstead, only to find that the woman from whom she's to collect the packet is lying dead in the hallway. For the police it's more than coincidence.

At the same time, the previously companionable atmosphere in the shared house has been shattered by Miles's girlfriend Leah, who has induced him to evict the tenants so that she and Miles can live alone in the house. Tensions mount, and enmities are increasingly brought into the open as the tenants negotiate with Miles for money to move out, while at the same time needing the emotional security of their home base. The story moves fast, climaxing in a third death which directly affects the whole cast of characters. However, as the pages turn, the tension begins to build again, particularly in the last couple of chapters.