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Ex-lawyer and writer Evan Delaney, against her better judgment, is returning to her home town of China Lake, California, to attend her 15th high school reunion. She and Jesse Blackburn arrive and Evan finds nothing has changed. The party is just as tedious as she had imagined, including the bitchiness of the 'girls'. One of the convenors of the party hasn't shown up, and another starts taking pot shots at her. The next morning, it is discovered that the missing woman has been tortured and murdered. And it will be up to Evan to untangle the evidence. Upon investigating, she discovers that 13 members of her class have died (14 if we include the murder victim) Almost all have died of 'accidents' or strange, debilitating diseases. That is a very high percentage of death of young adults from a relatively small group. Granted, one cannot drink the water, and China Lake would be a superfund site in the high desert if it belonged to the state, but it is a naval weapons testing center, larger than the state of Rhode Island, so people just live in the town around the base and try not to worry. Shortly after Evan started High School, the class was taken on a trip to the base to see the petroglyphs. Evan and three others split away from the group and went exploring on their own. They saw buildings suddenly explode and their classmates being rounded up and put on the bus. The missing students were picked up by several means, including helicopter. All the kids were told to remove their clothing, shower, put on their gym clothes, go home and wash their clothes. This black op comes back to bite them, years later. This is where I almost lost it. China Lake is a top secret naval weapons station halfway between LA and Death Valley. During the 1980s, people were allowed on the base to look at the petroglyphs, but, in the words of a navy veteran assigned to the base at that time: "...however there is nothing military anywhere near there . . . all the 'buildings which do not exist' are on the other side of the base . . . When you drive out to the airfield, the petroglyphs are off to the left, and the airfield starts another five or seven miles away and then the REALLY seekrit shit is MUCH further out into the desert. "Yes there could have been some scary strange stuff going on with bio weapons, nukes, whatever you can think of. However it would have to have been Navy or Marine Corps if the military was involved at all, but could have been just about anything with the civilian contractors I suppose." That said, the book really moves along. It bears more resemblance to a thriller than to a mystery. It is the fourth in the series and they have all been published in England. The first three are available on Amazon US but although Gardiner is an American, none of her books have been published in the States.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, December 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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