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Christine Morris, a forensic profiler, is recovering from a traumatic case involving child abuse. Her department sends her to a conference in Edinburgh to give her some breathing room, but while she’s there she’s contacted by the Scottish authorities who tell her that her mother has gone missing on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Christine is reluctant to rush to her mother’s rescue because she’s been through crisis after crisis with Joan (as she refers to her mother). Joan is an alcoholic and promiscuous woman who provided little in the way of nurturance or support to Christine during her childhood. She knows that if she allows herself to be swept into her mother’s world she will inevitably be subjected to the emotional rollercoaster of her mother’s manipulation and deceit. Nevertheless, Christine hops the next flight to the Isle of Lewis and meets with the local police who are investigating her mother’s disappearance. Sergeant Gordon Gillies is assigned to interview Christine and bring her up to date on the investigation. He ends up doing a lot more. He plays tour guide, allows her to participate fully, if unofficially, in the investigation and even grows into a possible romantic interest. Christine’s mom is suspected of driving a rental car in a reckless manner, causing the death of the woman who was a passenger in her car. Though the woman’s lifeless body was discovered in the battered car, there is no sign of Joan. Officials speculate that she may have been thrown from the car on impact and fallen into the sea. It turns out that Joan’s car was also seen at the home of a man who died under what Christine considers to be suspicious circumstances. Could her mother be an outright murderer in addition to being guilty of vehicular homicide? Christine reels from the news, but quickly rallies enough to begin her own search for the truth behind these tragic events. She’s able to call on her own skills as a forensic investigator to draw conclusions from the crime scene, and as she interviews local residents about what happened, she finds herself drawn to the beauty of this windy, rocky island and its down-to-earth inhabitants. In a subplot, one of the royal Princes is planning to visit the Isle of Lewis and Christine plays a major role in averting a plot against him. The climax to this story is beautiful in its symbolism, but the ending is a little too pretty and pat to be credible knowing what we do of Christine’s history with her mother. Maureen Jennings is the author of the wonderful award-winning Detective Murdoch series which is set in Victorian Toronto. In this new series Jennings succeeds equally well in depicting a closed culture with vivid detail. Her prose has its own quiet rhythm that immerses the reader in the story. I can’t wait to see what adventures await Christine in the second installment of this promising series.
Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, October 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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