Review: Answered questions lead to murder
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2012
From Chapter One:"They smiled at the camera, the image of a perfect middle-class nuclear family, caught forever in a five-by-seven glossy."`When did she leave?' I asked."The story of Philip and Renee Foster begins with a lot of unanswered questions. Renee seemed to be the ideal wife and mother. Philip has just hired and fired one PI, but begs PI Jeri Howard to find his missing wife. She has barely begun her investigation when he takes her off the case because of his overbearing father's disapproval.Too late. Jeri is intrigued. She tends to agree with her ex-husband, Sgt. Sid Vernon of the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section, who says: "The woman took a powder and doesn't want to come home." Jeri's question: Why?Renee's name turns out to be Elizabeth. A preliminary investigation leads Jeri to the missing woman's Aunt Vee, a kind and sympathetic woman who promptly hires Jeri to continue the search. Aunt Vee gives her basic information about the family. A neighbor and old newspaper stories fill in the blanks. Jeri's reasoning: "Maybe if I know where Elizabeth came from I'll have a better idea of where she went."Jeri learns that Renee/Elizabeth's maiden name was Willis, and the family was a mess: a father who was an absentee naval officer, a mother who was a flirt and a drunk, and three bewildered children. Now Elizabeth is a runaway wife and mother. Her sister Karen is a porn star. Her brother Mark spent 12 years in prison for murdering their parents and has been paroled.Jeri takes these revelations in stride: "... anyone who turns over rocks for a living should be prepared to deal with whatever crawls out." The investigation becomes an obsession. Convinced that the answers she seeks lie in the murder of Elizabeth's parents, Jeri probes deeper into the past and puts her own life on the line in a stunning conclusion.Jerri Howard is a great protagonist, determined to make her way in what traditionally was a man's world. She's tough enough to face down an antagonist. She and Sid have a prickly post-divorce relationship, but he has her back when it counts.The author's background as a newspaper reporter in civilian life and a journalist for the U.S. Navy serves her well in this novel. She has a sharp eye for detail and moves the story along at a good pace.This was a free download and I am definitely looking up this author's other books.