Sydney Sheldon: If tomorrow comes

This is an incredibly interesting novel. The common motif running through Sydney Sheldon's novels is that of a strong woman character who faces challenges, and eventually triumphes.
If tomorrow comes is about a woman called Tracy Whitney, who is seemingly well set. She is in love with a rich handsome guy, and he, over parental disapproval is all set to marry her. In a tragedy, she finds that her mother has committed suicide after being cheated by a local hood. She attacks him, and he uses that incident to get her jailed, as well as convicted of a painting theft (so that he can benefit). She gets betrayed by her lawyer and the judge.
She is now in jail, subject to the pressures over there, and having been dumped by her fiancee who can't have relations with anybody who has been convicted for theft and is an attempted murderer. In jail, she comes across inmates who are used to dominating others, and is setup as a target by one of these. Another one such defends her, but she really needs to escape from jail. She gets a plot, but as she is moving away, she makes the choice of saving the jailor's son who is drowning.
She is now a heroine, and eventual public pressure gets her a pardon. So she is now out, but without a job. After not luck regarding a career (due to being an ex-felon), she joins a cheating crowd, and starts becoming an expert at cheating people. First she takes revenge on the people who betrayed her (and this is interesting reading, especially the part about the judge getting convicted of spying in Russia). The rest of the book is all about her various adventures in cheating people, as well as the attemtps of an investigator who is always on her trail.
This is a pretty gripping novel, and not something that you can easily put down. Fun to read, and the incidents don't seem very unrealistic. You can actually emphatize with the heroine, who is actually cheating people.