Fiona Mountain Bloodline

Bloodline

Fiona Mountain

Dunne, Mar 2006, $23.95, 290 pp.

ISBN 0312323255

Taciturn Charles Seagrove reluctantly hires twenty-nine year old genealogist Natasha Blake to research the family tree of John Hellier, his granddaughter's boyfriend. He demands she work fast and give him the full details dating back to 1750. Working as hard as she ever did, Natasha makes plenty of progress, but when she visits her new client on his Cotswold farm she finds him PALE AS THE DEAD; someone killed him.

Though she no longer has anyone to pay the fee or her expenses, Natasha feels a strange obligation to complete her late client's request and to learn why someone shot Charles. As she begins digging deep into Charles' past, seeking the links to the family roots of Hellier, she uncovers a ghastly secret that ties her expanded investigation to an elderly victim of a Nazi plot. Her new findings not only widen the already widened inquiries, but this time places the intrepid heroine at great risk from an unknown assailant who wants the past to remain interred.

Natasha is a fabulous protagonist who knows she should stop, but feels deep in her gut that she owes it to her client to complete the job, which expanded to uncover who killed Charles. The storyline is filled with plenty of action, but driven by the somewhat obsessed heroine, and enhanced by a strong likable secondary cast. Fans of investigative tales will enjoy Fiona Mountain's wonderful who-done-it.