Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
Port Silva is a small bucolic, visually quiet town in Northern California with a population of 25,000 which means everybody knows their neighbors to some degree. Patience Mackellar was married to a policeman when he caught a bullet and ended up in a wheelchair. Together they opened a private investigation agency, but now that she is a widow, she continues with the business because she enjoys it.
She also has a junior partner, her thirty-year-old daughter Verity who just returned home after her three-year-old marriage turned sour and brutal. Their latest client is David Simonov, whose wife divorced him to marry his best friend Dev Costello. David also gave up custodial rights to his daughter but now he thinks they may be in trouble and he wants them found. During the course of the investigation, Verity bounces from one predicament to another nearly getting herself killed trying to locate Lily and Sylvia.
Port Silva is the type of town anyone desiring to escape the big city would like to live in. Characters from the first book in the Port Silva series make cameo and recurring appearances leading to a feeling of continuity to this series. Janet La Pierre has written on entertaining character driven who-done-it that provides plenty of enjoyment for that cool fall night reading.