 |
When Professor Nathan Cohen's body is found at the bottom of a cliff, questions abound. Was this an accident, a suicide, or a murder? With a lawyer's eye for detail, author Helms carefully builds cases against the primary suspects: Jane, a lawyer with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a long-ago student of the professor; Hannah, the professor's daughter with whom he is recently estranged; Frank, Hannah's lover and a man the professor considers far too old for his daughter; and Alex, Jane's friend and someone who had a loud and very public argument with the professor just prior to his death. As Detective Morelle Morgan and her team investigate the incident, more suspects emerge, and as the professor's shadowy, sordid history is revealed, it becomes clear that many have a motive. However, all of them have alibis, save the ones that Detective Morgan begins to focus on.
This is a tale with Shakespearean misunderstandings, false leads, mistaken identities, and unexpected reveals. There are a lot of twists and turns, but the author keeps the story organized in the same way that a lawyer organizes an argument to be presented in court. In that way, Helms wisely obeys the first rule of storytelling: don't waste the reader's time. The plot moves steadily forward, save for one side trip in a later chapter to explore part of Morgan's backstory, and several unexpected surprises that encourage the reader to keep turning the pages. The result is an entertaining whodunnit with legal authenticity that keeps one guessing as it moves relentlessly toward a logical but unexpected denouement.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review