From Publishers Weekly
Set in South Carolina's low country, Wall's cozy series featuring widowed accountant Bay Tanner gets better with each book. In her fourth outing (after 2003's
Perdition House), Bay returns home from an extended stay in Paris to find that her father, the Simpson part of Simpson & Tanner, Inquiry Agents, is making regular and significant payments to a mysterious visitor. When Judge Simpson refuses to answer Bay's questions about what's going on, Bay is stumped. How could her father be a blackmailer's target? Meanwhile, an old college friend of computer expert Eric Whiteside, with whom Bay started Simpson & Tanner, is killed in a freak boating accident, leaving a not-so-grieving father and a girlfriend who insists the death was murder. Wall manages to keep several seemingly unconnected story lines in play, building suspense gradually until things fall neatly into place. Her greatest strength, however, is her heroine, who exudes self-confidence whether auditing the books of a shrimping company or consulting a forensics expert. Bay's wry observation on how middle-aged women are invisible to waitresses if an attractive man is nearby cuts to the bone, but is made without rancor. Wall should continue to build a following among fans of older female sleuths.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From Booklist
Former accountant Bay Tanner returns to Hilton Head, South Carolina, from Paris when her boyfriend, Alain Darnay, rejoins Interpol, despite her objections. Tanner and colleagues in her fledgling detective agency--including her father (a retired judge) and computer expert Erik Whiteside--become involved in investigating the death of Erik's college friend Gray Palmer, an archaeologist who died after finding a skeleton on an island off the South Carolina coast. Gray's death is ruled an accident, but Erik and Gray's friend Mindy are convinced that it was murder and that Mindy has reason to fear for her own life. A vividly described setting and a likable, believable heroine, who is trying to come to terms with losing her lover, add appeal to the mystery plot, which hinges on that genre staple, the long-buried secret.
Sue O'BrienCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
