WHEN a Russian oligarch is blown up on a luxury yacht in the sea off the idyllic Greek island of Paxos, journalists Erik Jordan and Celia Grey are sent to investigate.

Erik and Celia work for The London Evening Record and are campaigning, investigative journalists, think less red tops and more Sunday Times Insight Team.

It’s not a quick bit of click bait they’re after, it’s the truth, and if it means putting themselves in danger, that’s all just part of the job.

In their pursuit of the truth, old Etonian and office Lothario Erik, and bi-sexual Lancastrian, Celia are taken back and forth from London and Greece, and along the way they fall into more than a working relationship.

The two become entangled in the murky, risky world of Balkan and Middle Eastern politics and espionage and in the end its a question of ‘publish and possibly die’.

Absurd Petunias is the latest book by Amanda Taylor, who lives on the edge of the Bolton Abbey estate. Amanda, whose late father was deputy editor of the Yorkshire Evening News , opens the book with a quote from Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian who died fighting for the freedom of the press.

It is her first venture into contemporary fiction, her last books have all been historical, including The Falcon with a Virgin’s Face which was centred on events around Skipton in the Middle Ages.

Absurd Petunias is available from The Stripey Badger, Grassington, and The Grove Bookshop, Ilkley. It is also available on line from WH Smith and Amazon UK.