See No Evil
Allison Brennan
Ballantine, Mar 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 0345495039

In San Diego, Emily Chandler Montgomery hates her creep of a stepfather, Judge Victor Montgomery. The teen knows he is a hypocrite, espousing family values except at home and her mother is only interested in her image as an icon on the charity circuit. The only blood member who cares about Emily is her paternal Aunt Julia Chandler, a Deputy DA.

When someone murders Victor in their home by cutting off a body part and shoving it down his throat, Police Detective Will Hooper assumes Emily with some friends killed her stepfather and then tried suicide. Julia hires defense lawyer Iris Jones whom she has opposed in court and asks former cop turned private investigator Connor Kincaid to help her prove her niece's innocence. Connor prefers to say no to the woman who got him kicked off the force, but as he did once before for Emily, he agrees to help.

SEE NO EVIL, the sequel to the first Kincaid tale SPEAK NO EVIL (with HEAR NO EVIL coming next month) is a terrific romantic mystery. The prime legal-private investigative storyline is fast-paced and filled with action on several levels; this subplot brings out the key cast from the niece to her aunt to the investigator as well as the lawyer and mom so that the audience appreciates the functional and dysfunctional interrelationships. Though the romance between Julia and Connor is deftly handled to enhance the tale, it still intrudes on a great, legal-private investigative thriller.

Harriet Klausner