Dark Passage (A Hannah Ives Mystery)
Amateur sleuth Hannah Ives and her sisters decide to take a cruise (a family relative has died, and they want to reconnect). Hannah’s 14-year-old niece, Julie, comes along for the ride, which turns out to be a really bad idea: the girl vanishes. Is it a case of niece overboard, or is there something even more sinister going on? When Hannah meets a man whose own daughter disappeared during another cruise, she knows something is definitely wrong. Talley keeps the Ives series fresh by making the most of a familiar formula in amateur-sleuth fiction. Rather than seeking mysteries to solve, Hannah sort of falls into them (in previous novels, she was appearing on a reality show, vacationing in England, and taking ballroom-dancing lessons when the crimes happened). Often this approach starts to feel contrived after a few episodes, but Talley sets up each murder situation quite believably. It doesn’t hurt, too, that Hannah is such an endearing character, a woman who’s gone through lots of difficult stuff—including breast cancer—but who has kept her spirit and sense of humor very much intact. Another winner in an always enjoyable series. --David Pitt