Marion Leigh loves to read, but in the weeks leading up to World Book Day on April 23 she was glued to her desk editing the third Petra Minx adventure thriller. Reading, like a lot of other things, had to take a back seat.

Now, as Mystery and Thriller Week draws to a close, Destination Wedding is ready to go to a group of “Beta readers” to get their feedback on everything from holes in the plot to errors of all kinds. Based on their comments, Marion will re-edit the novel prior to publishing. To whet your appetite, here’s the story line:

From the moment RCMP Marine Unit Sergeant Petra Minx arrives in South Africa to join her friend Carlo at his cousin’s wedding, she has no time to relax. She rushes to help two teenage girls whose phones are stolen on their first day in Cape Town, and agrees to check up on a friend’s daughter for her boss A.K. Her antennae begin to quiver when the teenagers leave on a tour that ends up in a Namibian village and A.K.’s protégée goes off to volunteer with an outreach group.

The week of the wedding is an insane round of outings and feasting micro-managed by Sandrine, stepmother of the troubled bride-to-be. The supercilious businesswoman dotes on Florian, her blonde, blue-eyed son who captivates every woman he meets, including Petra.

Carlo begins to suspect his own family of illegal activity as he looks into two cases of trafficking in illicit goods for Interpol: South-African made sugared almonds are being passed off as French, and undocumented diamonds are appearing on the European market.

Petra’s determination to find the three young women threatens to derail Carlo’s carefully planned sightseeing and safari trip to Namibia. What they don’t know is that forces are at work to prevent them from attaining their objectives. Whether they will succeed is anybody’s guess.

The most difficult thing for Marion has been to interweave the various aspects of the plot and keep the timeline straight as two groups head for Namibia. Soon you should be able to see whether she has succeeded.