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5.0 out of 5 stars
Nina Reilly Is a Treasure!, April 24 2002
Since this is the first Nina Reilly book I picked up, I have absolutely no complaints. I literally stumbled upon this book on a friend's bookcase, casually opened it up, and almost literally didn't put it down again until I had read the very last page.My only question is: Where have I been? Why had I not heard of this wonderful series, and its equally wonderful authors, sisters Mary and Pamela ("Perri") O'Shaugnessy? If this is, as some of the reviewers say, the "weakest" in the series, will I survive the strongest? The story takes place in scenic Lake Tahoe, where sleazy casinos vie with gorgeous mountains and stately pines for attention. The night are dark and starry, and the days...well it depends who you are. For struggling attorney Nina Reilly, who is living with her brother and sister-in-law when the book begins, the days are full of crime and conspiracy. So she decides to hike a nearby mountain with a man who interests her: deputy DA Collier Hallowell. Collier is still mourning his wife, killed a few years earlier by a hit-and-run driver who was never found. Nina has some vague idea of bringing him into the world of the living. But before that can happen, the two encounter a family that puts the word "dysfunctional" to shame. It consists of blustering Ray DeBeers, given to abusive language, his fearful wife Sarah, his gorgeous twins Jason and Molly, and a family friend. A storm comes up, Ray is hit by lightening and killed--and the action begins, not to stop until the very last word of the very last sentence. Was Ray's death really an accident? Is his death somehow connected with the death of Hallowell's wife? And what of the mysterious, ethereal artist Kim Voss, she of the indoor cactus garden? Add in a genuine grave-robbing, a mysterious gardeners, stolen cars, people who won't talk, people who talk too much, and a brilliant teen who may or may not be connected to the DeBeers family, and the action is fast and furious. Nina, her sidekick and sometime lover, PI Paul van Wagoner, Hallowell himself, Nina's Native American secretary and a host of lesser characters try to solve a mystery that simply compounds upon itself like a cancerous cell. In the end, nobody is untouched or unhurt by the actions that unwind at dizzying speed. I loved this book so much, I purchased everything else in the series I could get my hands on. Now my problem is: Do I go back to the beginning, and patiently catch up? Or do I read the next book in the series (whose teaser appears at the end of the paperback version), "Breach of Promise"? Stay tuned. This is one reviewer who is totally, happily, hooked.
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