Death Duties (Port Silva Mysteries) [Paperback]

Janet LaPierre (Author)

Book Description

Series: Port Silva Mysteries | Publication Date: September 2004

LaPierre's eighth Port Silva mystery, where the spirit of the quiet, dramatic north country is the setting for profound insights into family relationships. Hired by Christina Larson, as a deathbed promise, to clear her grandfather's name of a pedophilia accusation from thirty years ago, Verity Mackellar and her mother, Patience, aka Patience Smith, Investigations, take the case. The Mackellars are initially reluctant: Patience believes it will reopen old wounds. Verity sees success as unlikely and onetime friend Chris as disagreeable. Then Verity reads the old man’s bitter suicide note, ""They've left me nothing... I damn them to hell, whoever they are.""

Product Details

• Paperback: 283 pages
• Publisher: John Daniel & Company Books (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188028474X
• ISBN-13: 978-1880284742
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,701 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LaPierre holds the reader ransom from the first page, March 2, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Duties (Port Silva Mysteries) (Paperback)

Janet LaPierre is a prolific mystery writer who has garnered nominations for the Shamus Award, the Anthony, and the Macavity awards as well as critical acclaim from readers and peers. LaPierre lives in Berkeley, and wanders around several counties for research with her trailer, laptop, and two dogs.

Cold cases are often the most challenging, and Patience and Verity Mackellar, Private Investigators, take on a thirty-year old case in Port Silva when Edgar Larson's granddaughter asks them to investigate child molestation charges that Christina Larson feels sure her grandfather was innocent of. Chris has made a promise to her father on his deathbed, and she means to carry through. Unfortunately, Edgar committed suicide a few months after the charges were filed. One fact is plain. There were two anonymous calls to the police making the charges...one from a female and one from a male. As Patience and Verity investigate, it becomes clear that someone in town doesn't want the investigation. When a woman Verity questions turns up dead of a gunshot wound in her pickup, the plot thickens and tongues wag:

"'Then this morning I heard on the local news that they found a Port Silva woman dead in her pickup truck somewhere upcoast. After that a friend called to say she heard it was Tessa Finch and she's been raped and beaten to death.'

Patience folded the napkin over the Danish and pushed it away.

'Marilyn, she died from a gunshot wound. The police suspect suicide but they won't know for sure until there's been further investigation and a postmortem.'"

LaPierre is especially good at tying the lush locale into her tale. The coastal area of California boasts everything from farms to woods and abandoned mines, not to mention the local color of the people. Patience and Verity are both single women who have taken in a precocious eight year old named Silvie, and then a dog named Zak. Their connection with two of Port Silva's police officers create a romantic touch, as well as providing enough police procedural to embellish the tale. The combination of characters, plot, and setting gives spooky authenticity to the family conflicts which surround this mystery. LaPierre holds the reader ransom from the first page until all facets of the tale have been laid out like rose petals. This is a great tale, and LaPierre deserves her exalted position as one of the best writers around.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, October 20, 2004

By 

M. Howland (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death Duties (Port Silva Mysteries) (Paperback)

Janet Lapierre is simply a wonderful writer. She creates people we believe in, describes her Northern California Coastal town settings so clearly we can taste the fog and smell the redwoods, and devises crisp, clean plots that feel like events that just might happen to us one day, but we hope won't. In "Death Duties, she's done it again, brilliantly.

Patience McKellar and her daughter Verity, of "Patience Smith Investigations," take on the matter of Edgar Larson's death years before -- he committed suicide after being accused, anonymously, of child molestation. His daughter wants his name cleared.

Nothing stirs up trouble like turning over the rocks of an old scandal in a small town. It's the age-old story about people and the consequences of their actions, and eventually, murder. This story unfolds so sneakily, and we're so caught up in the day to day lives of Verity and Patience and their child - and boy, does LaPierre do children well - that we almost forget about the danger, the menace, the fact that some resident of nice cozy Port Silva isn't in fact nice at all.

If you've read the previous Port Silva mysteries, you'll recognize some of the other players in this tale too - it's like coming home. And if you haven't read those, what a treat you have in store.

5.0 out of 5 stars Old Wounds Stir Up Small Town Trouble, July 10, 2008

By 

Debra Purdy Kong "Author of Casey Holland Tra... (British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Duties (Port Silva Mysteries) (Paperback)

Not everyone likes prologues in novels, but I do, provided they're short and intriguing. The opening of Janet LaPierre's Death Duties epitomizes all that's good about prologues. In a page and a half, the author shows us a little girl's love for her grandfather, and a grandfather who is clearly troubled by something.

Chapter One picks up the story twenty-eight years later, where we learn that the grandfather had committed suicide when his granddaughter, Christina Larson, was still very young. We also learn why Edgar Larson killed himself, which is another reason I loved this prologue. The big question is answered early. Edgar had been accused of child molestation by two anonymous callers, not long after a child was raped and murdered. No evidence ever connected Edgar to the crime, yet rumors persisted in the small town of Port Silva. Edgar wound up ostracized by many, including his daughter-in-law who severed his relationship with Christina.

After the death of her own father, Christina returns to town and hires Verity MacKeller of Patience Smith, Investigations to clear her grandfather's name. Not an easy task. Memories are faulty and many of Port Silva's residents back then have moved away or died. Complicating Verity's professional life are the ups and downs of parenting her adopted eight-year-old child and a local cop who's falling for Verity. The more she learns about the past, however, the more danger Verity puts herself and others in.

One of the many appealing aspects of this book is Verity's mother, Patience, the driving force of Patience Smith, Investigations. While Verity sorts out the past, Patience has her own clients and ongoing romance. By weaving both women's lives together, LaPierre portrays a unique mother/daughter relationship.

Death Duties is a gripping read. The rainy ambience of Port Silva reflects Verity's state of mind as she explores a time most residents don't remember fondly, and ponders her own future with trepidation. The twists and turns kept me guessing in this compelling story.