"How to clear her mother-in-law while eating food for her column"

Carolyn and Jason Blue are off to San Francisco. Jason will be attending a conference on environmental chemistry and toxicology in their hotel the Stanford Court. Carolyn calls her mother-in-law only to get a message on her answering machine that she has been arrested for first- degree murder. At first Jason doesn't believe her, but then he hears the message too.

Since Jason is tied up in his conference, Carolyn goes to visit her. Vera Blue, her mother-in-law, tells her not to investigate. She says the police will figure out their mistake. Once Carolyn meets with Vera's lawyer Margaret Hanrahan and Inspector Harry Yu, she realizes she'd better start looking into things because no one else is. The police feel they have the murderer.

Carolyn and Jason move over to Vera's sublet so that it will be easier for Vera to get messages to them. In the process, Carolyn meets Bruno Valetti who lives on the second floor. He is totally smitten with Vera and ends up helping Carolyn with part of her investigation.

Jason contacts his dad, Vera's ex-husband, and he flies into town and hires private detective Sam Flamboise, a gay former football player turned private eye. Sam and Carolyn do a lot of the detecting together. There are so many potential suspects. They quite often end up in seedy locations. Plus Jason is not too excited to find out they have been riding on Sam's motorcycle.

This was the first book I've read in this series. I like Carolyn a lot. This was a very enjoyable story. I thought she blended some great characters together and I found the story to be quite believable.

My only frustration was with the fact that a chapter can be written from a different character's perspective. She lists at the beginning of each chapter who is speaking, but I read in small bursts and found myself forgetting who was talking. I can see in other books (I've since read another in this series) this really helps the story. I just didn't find it as helpful in this one.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more in this series.

Reviewed by Dawn Dowdle
Posted February 21, 2004

Summary

Carolyn Blue's trip to San Francisco includes a visit to her mother-in-law, a few earthquake tremors-and a stint in prison as a murder suspect. A column on prison food might make for an interesting change of pace...