Charlene Weir, Edge of Midnight

Edge of Midnight

Charlene Weir

Dunne, Mar 2007, $23.95

ISBN: 0312347979

In Hampstead, Kansas, Police Chief Susan Wren, battling the flu, reads the riot act to new cop Ida Rather, who disobeyed a direct order and almost seriously injured another police officer. At about the same time that Susan admonishes Ida, in El Cerrito, California attorney Arlette persuades battered Cary Black to flee her abusive spouse Mitch a cop, at a time when his professed beloved is going blind. Arlette arranges for Cary to hide in the home of a friend Kelby Oliver in Hampstead.

Upon arriving in Hampstead, Cary finds Kelby is missing. Fearing the beating of her life for running away, Cary moves into Kelby's home and begins to become a woman even obtaining work under her new identity as a caretaker for a stroke sufferer and gets a library card in order to borrow books. However, unbeknownst to Cary, Kelby is in hiding after death threats from thugs because of her position as she sits on a jury in which the prosecution seeks the death penalty for a brutal rape-murder. Soon everything will converge on the frightened rabbit who obviously picked the wrong identity to hide behind.

Two things freshen up the seventh Chief Wren tale: first she is not the prime player, but serves more in a support role and second Mitch's extreme behavior between abuse and love seems genuine. The storyline is action-packed from the moment that Cary flees for the Plains only to jump "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". What is fascinatingly is that it is enthusiastic disobedient Ida rather than Susan who plays the prime investigative role. Charlene Weir keeps readers' attention as they wonder whether Mitch will get to Cary before the thugs get to her as Kelby.

Harriet Klausner