Hadley & Grace, a novel by Suzanne Redfearn, is a fun, fast-paced novel about justice. Not the kind of justice courts disburse, but the kind we like to see when injustices occur.

Hadley Torelli is a good mother, coping with a teenage daughter and a special-needs nephew that she’s temporarily raising for her sister. Hadley’s husband, Frank, is brilliant, paranoid, neurotic…and violent. When Frank losses his temper, Hadley experiences terror and shame; she hates that her cowardice affects her daughter.

Grace is Frank’s secretary. She’s efficient and dedicated. With her shady past, she has to be capable. Her husband is serving with the military in Afghanistan, so Grace is on her own, scrimping to make ends meet. She has a baby now and is determined to be a good mother, to give her little son the kind of loving home she never had.

By an unlikely chance, these two women, the wife and secretary, happen to meet. Together they make a decision that will change the course of several lives. The two women really have nothing in common, and after they act on this decision they’ll go their separate ways.

But wait. It’s not that simple. They need each other, for a while at least. What follows becomes more complicated and involved than either bargained for. The result is a Thelma and Louise situation that just keeps unraveling.

For a lively, entertaining read, I highly recommend Hadley & Grace.