Final Approach
Non-series
Rachel
Brady
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-655-7 (1590586557)
ISBN-13: 987-1-59058-655-6 (9871590586556)
Publication Date: October 2009
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Sometimes clues just fall from the sky. Four years ago
Emily Locke's life was shattered when her infant daughter and husband
were lost in an inexplicable accident. She has nearly rebuilt her
fragile mental health when Richard Cole, a disgraced former police
detective now working as a PI, resurfaces. He wants help he says only
she can provide—reconnaissance at a Texas skydiving establishment
over a thousand miles away. Emily knows better than to work with him
again, but can't refuse when she learns it's about a missing boy. She
identifies too greatly with the new missing child case.
At Gulf Coast Skydiving, similarities between this new case and Emily's
troubled past make it increasingly difficult for her to stay objective.
Soon she's convinced that she is somehow connected to whoever took
little Casey Lyons. Someone at the quiet, rural airstrip knows what
happened to the boy ... and to Emily's own daughter.
To find Casey before it's too late, Emily will have to make sense of
the menacing parallels between his case and her daughter's.
Review: Rachel
Brady introduces Emily Locke, an experienced sky diver still mourning
the loss of her husband and infant daughter in a boating accident four
years ago, whose help is requested by a most unlikely source, in Final Approach, the author's debut
mystery.
Richard Cole was the police officer in charge of investigating, and
mishandling, the accident that killed Emily's family. Forced to leave
the police department, he's now a private investigator looking into the
disappearance of a child in Texas, far from Emily's home in Ohio. His
only lead is the Gulf Coast Skydiving School. Richard knows of only one
person who may help him gather information, but Emily is loathe to
assist him. Still, she can't bear the thought that another mother might
lose a daughter because of her unwillingness to help. She travels to
Texas and joins the school as an instructor. Not skilled in the more
subtle aspects of investigative stealth, she's quickly caught looking
through the school's financial records, but not before learning that
there are numerous entries of income that don't seem directly related
to the business. Though the owners are now suspicious of her, she's
allowed to stay on, later overhearing talk of trafficking in children.
Unsure of how to proceed, and lacking concrete evidence to back up her
story, she and Richard work together to determine who is in charge of
this child kidnapping ring, and how they can shut it down.
The plot of Final Approach is
somewhat implausible and at times doesn't seem fully developed, but the
entertaining and well-drawn characters, especially those of the sky
diving school, tend to compensate. That one of them is a cold-blooded
villain is not unexpected, but it's hard to pick out which of the group
it is. Overall, though Final Approach
is a fast reading book, interesting and quirky in its own way, it is
not especially memorable.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Final Approach and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Final Approach? How would you rate it?
Novels by this author …
Final Approach
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), October 2009
ISBN-10: 1-59058-655-7 (1590586557)
ISBN-13: 987-1-59058-655-6 (9871590586556)
Omnimystery keywords for Final Approach ...
Location(s) referenced: Houston, Texas.
