Sam Carrington’s “Bad Sister” is a diabolically twisted little British crime novel (Avon, 356 pages)

Psychologist Connie Moore is trying to put her life together after committing an error which nearly ended her career as a counselor.

Moore had advised the prison authorities that prisoner Eric “Ricky” Hargreaves should be paroled. Shortly after his release, the sociopathic Hargreaves raped a woman.

An aggressive reporter pinned the mistake on the psychologist, who after an extended leave, changed her name to Summers (her mother’s maiden name) and went into private practice, vowing to avoid counseling criminals.

When the rapist Hargreaves is found butchered after having escaped from prison, the police suspect that Connie Summers may be involved in the death of this infamous criminal.

While trying to solve the mystery surrounding the murder of Hargreaves, she is approached by a single mother who wants her to be her therapist.

The woman, Stephanie, is in the witness protection program, having testified against a criminal gang. Stephanie is alarmed as she has been receiving letters from her brother, a convicted arsonist who started a fire which killed their father.

Things take a critical turn when Stephanie is believed to have committed suicide in an act which also killed her young son. Connie suspects Stephanie’s death was not a suicide — but murder.

As she begins her investigation, she is shocked to find that there is a connection between the ill-fated Stephanie and the death of her own brother Luke, who was killed in what was thought to have been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sam Carrington has written a very tense psychological crime drama which keeps the reader on edge from the very first paragraph to the incendiary last sentence.