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Private Investigator Sharon McCone has just returned from Carson City, Nevada, after surprising herself and her large circle of family and friends by eloping with longtime significant other, the dashing Hy Ripinsky. They attend a hastily arranged reception and the champagne is still bubbly when Hy is called away on business and Sharon is cornered by her friend Rae to dig up a cold case for a friend.
Sharon's PI business is booming. She has come a long way from the All Souls Legal Cooperative in the 1970s. She has expanded her investigative staff to handle all the new business piling up, even during her brief escape to Nevada. Digging into the 22-year-old sudden disappearance of Laurel Greenwood --- wife and mother of two small daughters --- is not at the top of her priority list.
She agrees to interview the now-grown daughter and is given a large retainer and reluctantly consents to talk to authorities and other family members. It is quickly apparent that things don't quite add up. As the case unfolds, the daughter vanishes as suddenly and mysteriously as her mother. Members of Sharon's extended family find themselves entwined in the mystery that begins to point away from suicide or murder to something more sinister. Meanwhile, Sharon and Hy's unconventional marriage, off to anything but an idyllic start, seems downright stable and normal compared to the fractured relationships among the family members of the missing woman.
The complex emotional relationships that surface are skillfully woven into the plot, which twists and turns like the scenic wine country roads along the Northern California coastal region Sharon travels as she embarks on the search.
Laurel Greenwood may be one of Marcia Muller's more complicated and interesting characters, and she treats the complexities of Laurel's troubled past with page-turning intrigue. McCone fans can look forward to Muller's increasingly polished style of storytelling, and they will be treated to a travelogue of some of America's most beautiful country.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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