Laura Benedict Isabella Moon

Isabella Moon

Laura Benedict

Ballantine, Oct 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 9780345497673

It has been two years since nine years old Isabella Moon disappeared and the failure to resolve the case eats at Sheriff Bill Delaney. Rationalizing that these things do not happen in quaint Carystown, Kentucky fails to lift the despondent law enforcement official.

No one is more surprised than newcomer Kate Russell when she sees the ghost of Isabella; she follows the spirit to the spot where the little girl was buried. It takes tremendous will power for Kate to inform Bill what she saw as she has dark secrets that could lead to her arrest. Initially Bill assumes Kate is a flake, but he cannot get her statement out of his mind; so reluctantly he digs at the spot she mentioned and uncovers the corpse. Clues lead to Paxton Birkenshow, a blue blood with plenty of money. He is seeing Kate's best friend Francie, a black woman who does not want their relationship made public as her mother believes he is weak. Paxton and Kate mutually despise each other, but she has other woes besides being a suspect in the Isabella murder; her dangerous secret has come to town to reclaim her. These secrets keep Bill busy while changing his life forever.

This is a refreshing original mystery that occurs in a twenty-first century Peyton Place like town. There are many key interesting characters with some providing a third person point of view that moves the exciting story line forward with a reasonable degree of believability and understanding. ISABELLA MOON is a multifaceted police procedural intertwined with subplots that come together to forge a well written recommended whodunit.

Harriet Klausner