Kate Charles, Secret Sins

Secret Sins

Kate Charles

Poisoned Pen, Mar 2007, $24.95

ISBN 1590583566

In London, recently ordained Anglican cleric Callie Anson is happy with her relationship with police officer Marco "Mark" Lombardi though he seems to avoid having her meet his Italian family. Callie tries to provide solace to new parishioner Morag Hamilton, who is worried about her beloved, preadolescent granddaughter Alex who never goes outside unless she has to; her father Alex is too busy with work and her stepmother Jilly is too busy with her own needs to care that Alex lives on the Internet.

While Callie worries about Morag and Alex, Detective Inspector Neville Stewart investigates a missing jogger, computer guru Trevor Norton whose wife is about to give birth. Though he hopes the runner is found okay, Neville fears the worst while welcoming the respite from his personal problems of a maybe-romance with the woman he has always loved who dumped him a decade ago. Now Neville has a second vanishing to investigate; that twelve-year-old Alex whose grandmother reported her missing.

The key to this exciting London investigative tale is the extended cast are fully-developed, three-dimensional people who make the several plots merge into a terrific, one-sitting thriller. Alex is the link that ties the multitude of plots into one superior storyline. Readers will want to obtain Kate Charles' fine, character-driven tale SECRET SINS and the previous novel with much of the same lead players, EVIL INTENT.

Harriet Klausner