"Dark amateur sleuth"

On Vancouver Island, jewelry designer widow Kirsten Zelichovsky awaits the arrival of her flirty sister Emma Knelson. However, when Emma fails to appear, Kirsten turns to the police, who offer no satisfaction.

To get away from her worries, Kirsten joins some friends caving. When she finds a passage into one cave, her cronies dub it "Kirsten's Cave. However, she is stunned when inside the cave she finds a ring that is the first major piece of jewelry she made; one that she gave to Emma. As she begins to dig into what happened to her sibling, she meets two interesting individuals just arriving in British Columbia from Tasmania. Dr. Stafford is a Canadian doctor while Teague Kendall is a writer interested in police procedures involving missing tourists as actually occurred back home. However, as Kirsten gets closer to the truth, she wonders who to trust for one of these new friends is the Specialist, a serial killer with an exotic taste for food.

Though coincidence is used to throw off the reader, fans will appreciate this dark amateur sleuth tale. Kirsten is a terrific center holding together the tense story line as she struggles to learn what happened to Emma. The support cast adds depth even inside the caves as they bring out the strength of the heroine as well as disguise the identity of the killer until the final serpentine twist in the caverns.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 29, 2004