From Publishers Weekly
In a rambling adventure, following Amateur Night , Jane da Silva, Beck's Seattle sleuth who must investigate hopeless cases in order to inherit her eccentric uncle's fortune, searches for a missing woman, a recent winner of $20,000 on TV's Jeopardy! Irene March, employed by a news clipping service, has been missing for a week when two co-workers ask Jane to find her. Jane learns that Irene had developed a blackmailing operation using the news stories she came across in her job and that at least two of her victims--a woman exploiting her daughter to raise funds for a bogus operation and another whose distinctive car was seen leaving the scene of a hit-and-run accident--had reason to want Irene dead. When Irene's body is found at the bottom of a ravine, Jane sticks with the case and gets caught up in a complex chain of events that leads her into a confrontation with a killer in Electric City, near the Grand Coulee Dam. Although Beck gives readers an appealing tour of Washington State and provides Jane with a country-singer love interest, this tale is underpowered.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Under the conditions of her wealthy uncle's will, Jane da Silva (Amateur Night, Mysterious Pr., 1993) may keep her inheritance only if she investigates "unsolvable," pro bono cases. This time, concerned clipping-service co-workers of a missing woman ask for help. Jane soon discovers that the woman, a recent winner on TV's Jeopardy!, roamed the state as a blackmailer. She turns up dead, of course, while Jane traces her last moves. This plot, too, sounds familiar, but the refreshing heroine, Seattle surroundings, and secret-life subplot make for pleasant reading.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
