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Toby Dillon isn’t very impressed with the two people sitting in his closet of an office, off the pro shop at the Coral Canyon Country Club. One is a dot.com millionaire and the other is his lovely wife. They want Toby to fix the adoption of their daughter Lynn Handley. Sixteen years ago, they hadn’t been wealthy. They had done some sleight-of-hand at a hospital with a young unwed mother, and come home with a baby whose birth certificate looked legit but wasn’t. Now they want to straighten things out because someone is sending very nasty letters, first to both Catherine and Nevin, but recently just to Nevin. Toby is inclined to pass on the deal because the Handleys just rub him the wrong way. But then there’s Lynn. She’s his prize student, with lots of potential and he likes her. So he takes the job. Toby may not be the most ambitious lawyer out there, but he does know his adoption law. He manages to track down the birth mother fairly easily, although not without running into some people who have reactions to him that are unexpected. Then Nevin is killed. This complicates things, as one might expect. Is his death related to the extortion notes, and therefore to the adoption? Or does this have something to do with some unsavory business associates? In the meantime, Lynn and Catherine seem to have grown closer together as a result of Nevin’s death. What will happen when Lynn’s birth mother comes into the picture? And who is the father? Toby keeps pulling at loose ends, tracking down leads, working his case. BABY CRIMES is an excellent sequel to BABY GAMES, Hicks’s wonderfully successful first novel. The denouement isn’t nearly as stunning in terms of surprises, but the plotting is great and the characters continue to develop. Toby’s relationship with Rita doesn’t flow as smoothly as he’d like, but it makes for a better book. Hicks is writing what he knows, and doing a damn fine job of it. Although the content is in no way similar, Toby Dillon (and Hick’s style and tone) are reminiscent of Gordon Seegerman in Dylan Schaffer’s MISDEMEANOR MAN series. This is a compliment to both writers.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, June 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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