Thirty years ago, Dani Duprie, having spotted an unknown woman giving her the once-over, persuaded her husband, Bill, to pack up their 10-year-old daughter and pull up stakes yet again for an undisclosed but very urgent reason. The mysterious circumstances of their departure from the Cliff House still have the locals buzzing, but the buzz hasn\u2019t reached Serena Winters, the well-known author of 11 Layne Farraday mysteries, until after she\u2019s settled in the Cliff House. \u201cSettled\u201d may not be the best word, since she\u2019s greeted by a series of anonymous messages beginning with \u201cLEAVE TOWN NOW\u201d and then escalating in their threats. When housekeeper Wanda Stockwell accuses her of moving to Cliff House in order to exploit the Dupries\u2019 disappearance, Serena takes this as a karmic invitation to dive into the case with Seaton Point police Chief Jack Beaumont, who\u2019s at least equally interested in her. All the while, Gray\u2019s been shuttling repeatedly into the past to follow the fortunes of bad-girl Ruby Bryant, tossed out of her old home back in 1983 because she refused to accept her mother\u2019s latest lover, who seemed to have an eye on her as well. Eventually the two narratives come together in a way that will surprise only newcomers to the genre. In fact, the biggest limitation in this propulsive mystery is a distinct lack of mystery. It\u2019s nice to report, however, that Serena\u2019s latest opus gets well underway.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thirty years ago, Dani Duprie, having spotted an unknown woman giving her the once-over, persuaded her husband, Bill, to pack up their 10-year-old daughter and pull up stakes yet again for an undisclosed but very urgent reason. The mysterious circumstances of their departure from the Cliff House still have the locals buzzing, but the buzz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}