Baby Mine: A Meg Halloran and Vince Gutierrez Mystery [Paperback]

The best thing about LaPierre's sixth Port Silva mystery (after Old Enemies) is how the novel quickly sneaks behind the picturesque facade of a fictional town on the Northern California coast to reveal the hard truths of modern life. "So gradually that a busy, self-absorbed person could fail to notice, the empty storefronts had begun to appear.... Meg counted among the missing a small food store, a shoe store. A store selling kitchenware...." Meg Halloran, a high-school teacher and single mother, has recently married Port Silva's police chief, Vincent Gutierrez. The novel begins with her getting badly beaten by a gang of ski-masked teenage thugs as she tries to stop an attack on a homeless man. It ends with Vincent getting even more badly beaten by a crazed villain. In between, there are two murdersAof young Hispanic women who live in a seedy motel called the Winner's Circle and are connected to a controversial local fertility clinicAand the suspicious death by fire of a crusty old doctor who was like a father to Vince. There are also more relatives and friends than in one of Marcia Muller's novels, so trying to figure out who's who can be daunting. LaPierre is one of those writers who describes virtually every bite of food or swallow of drink her characters consume. Her new novel is absorbing, but its colorful landscape would be a lot less cluttered if she left more to readers' imaginations. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An apparent crime wave in Port Silva, an economically depressed coastal California town, results in the death of a young Hispanic woman with connections to a local fertility clinic. Schoolteacher Meg Halloran and her husband, police chief Vince Gutierrez, solve this one together. For series fans and others.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

More bad tidings for the California hamlet of Port Silva. A bunch of hooligans is breaking into the locals' houses, assaulting street people, and turning on schoolteacher Meg Halloran when she tries to stop them. Meg's husband, police chief Vince Guttierrez, would love to go after the ski-masked gang, especially since he's got a list of nogoodniks and their school age offspring a mile long, but he's got problems of his own. Stung by budget cuts and pressured by Lyle Lindblad, the publicity-minded mayor who doesn't want any word to leak out about increasingly vituperative protests against Dr. James Ferrar's fertility clinic, Vince is working the homicide of clinic cleaning woman Esperanza Moreno. Just another wetback killing, claims Lindblad, unless Esperanza's husband, who claims a Mexican alibi, did it himself. But Esperanza's high-priced lingerie tells a different story, one that leads away from comfortable explanations about the other side of the tracks and straight to the heart of Dr. Ferrar's troubled family, and maybe Vince and Meg's family too. Before the dust clears, there'll be more violent protests, a gang rape, a fire, and, inevitably, another murder. Amid all the sound and fury, though, LaPierre (Old Enemies, 1993, etc.) is most notable for her expert flow of quiet updates about so many Port Silva citizens that her sixth novel reads like a newsy letter from home with mayhem obbligato. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"I loved Baby Mine, a rich, multifaceted mystery. What a pleasure to revisit Meg, Vince, and Katy, who are, as always, real and unforgettable. The issues they tackle are important and complex, and their north coast setting so powerful, you can feel the fog. Best of all, Janet LaPierre juggles all of it with style and grace. In short, this is one terrific book." -- Gillian Roberts, Anthony Award winner

"Janet LaPierre is a very gifted writer whose delightful characters slip off the printed page and lead you on a magical journey. Suddenly you're no longer reading in your chair but traveling the streets of the charming seaside town of Port Silva, caught up in the fast-paced and puzzling events you can always count on experiencing there. Baby Mine is another winning entry in this excellent series." -- Marcia Muller, Anthony Award winner

"Janet LaPierre is a very gifted writer, whose delightful characters slip off the printed page and lead you on a magical journey. Suddenly you're no longer reading in your chair but traveling the streets of the charming seaside town of Port Silva, caught up in the fast-paced and puzzling events you can always count on experiencing there. Baby Mine is another winning entry in this excellent series." -- Marcia Muller, PWA Life Achievement Award recipient

A Town in Trouble

Port Silva, California Elevation 100 feet Established 1885 Population 24,020

Now high school teacher Meg and her police chief husband are back, along with other memorable townspeople, in LaPierre's new novel of suspense. Baby Mine is the sixth in the series and the first to be published by Perseverance Press/John Daniel and Company. Told with LaPierre's characteristic subtlety and power, Baby Mine depicts a difficult time for the Northern California seaside town, as well as for Meg and Vince's marriage.

Drawn from the news stories of the nineties, Baby Mine brings to life the human consequences of such social forces as a depressed economy, an overstressed environment, and an influx of immigrants straining limited resources. These influences come together in the dramatic and mysterious events at a local fertility clinic. Port Silva's web of small-town relationships is fraying; unemployment, racism, and religious zealotry collide to produce an unprecedented crime wave; and Meg and Vince must help their town recover its interconnectedness and save itself.

A Town in Trouble

Port Silva, California Elevation 100 feet Established 1885 Population 24,020

When Janet LaPierre's first Port Silva mystery was published, Booklist hailed it as "a razor-sharp debut." About Meg Halloran's and Vince Gutierrez's first appearance together, respected critic Ellen Nehr praised "the smooth presentation of believable characters and coastal atmosphere." Reviewers called the succeeding books, "satisfying"(Publishers Weekly), "deftly woven"(San Francisco Chronicle),"warm and thoroughly engrossing"(West Coast Review of Books), "seductive"(PW), and "taut, telling suspense"(PW). The feelings of LaPierre's readers for her series characters were summed up by Mystery News: "Let's just say Meg Halloran rides again, and it's been too long."

Now high school teacher Meg and her police chief husband are back, along with other memorable townspeople, in LaPierre's new novel of suspense. Baby Mine is the sixth in the series and the first to be published by Perseverance Press/John Daniel and Company. Told with LaPierre's characteristic subtlety and power, Baby Mine depicts a difficult time for the Northern California seaside town, as well as for Meg and Vince's marriage.

Drawn from the news stories of the nineties, Baby Mine brings to life the human consequences of such social forces as a depressed economy, an overstressed environment, and an influx of immigrants straining limited resources. These influences come together in the dramatic and mysterious events at a local fertility clinic. Port Silva's web of small-town relationships is fraying; unemployment, racism, and religious zealotry collide to produce an unprecedented crime wave; and Meg and Vince must help their town recover its interconnectedness and save itself.

Everybody liked Esperanza. . .

. . . her neighbors, her teenaged friend Graciela, the doctor at the fertility clinc where she had worked. Everybody but the person who beat and strangled her and tossed her body off the ocean bluff like so much garbage.

Port Silva chief of police Vince Gutierrez, struggling to keep his rain-weary and economically depressed town from crumbling into chaos, at first suspects Espy's death is another in a recent string of domestic crimes, and sets up a search for her missing husband and children. Then Graciela, sixteen years old and pregnant, disappears. . . .

Janet LaPierre's five previous Port Silva novels include Unquiet Grave, Children's Games, The Cruel Mother, Grandmother's House, and Old Enemies. Each of them can be read alone as a fine literary mystery. LaPierre has also written short stories for magazines and anthologies. One of her stories and two of her novels have been nominated for Anthony and Macavity Awards. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and often visits her beloved north coast in a 25-foot travel trailer with her yellow lab, Emmitt Smith, and her laptop.