GHOST DAUGHTER

A Texas lawyer fights to protect her client’s valuable artworks—and solve the woman’s murder—in this seventh installment of a mystery series.

When Ellie Windom misses an appointment, attorney Alice Greer drives to her client’s home to check on her. She’s surprised to see Ellie’s horse inside the house, then discovers the 73-year-old widow’s body as well. Ellie had been pondering her will—what to leave her two sons and the daughter she gave up for adoption more than 50 years ago. As the woman’s executor, Alice, inventorying Ellie’s other home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, unearths a box stuffed with an artist’s prints. Apparently, someone thinks the prints are valuable, as Alice narrowly dodges intruders at the home and makes a tense drive back to Texas with the artworks. The lawyer now has her hands full; she’s dealing with Ellie’s sons, who have long feuded over their inheritance, making either one the woman’s possible killer. In settling the estate, Alice connects with Ellie’s birth daughter and the child’s father, Roger Preyer. But things get even more complicated when it seems someone, for whatever reason, is trying to kill Roger. Foster’s hero is, as always, whip-smart and affable. Alice skillfully manages her eternally busy professional and personal lives; in the midst of her amateur murder investigation, she defends the local library against a lawsuit that seeks to ban Harry Potter books. Many supporting characters are as likable as Alice, including her boyfriend, Ben Kinsear, and his daughters, who don’t think twice about chasing down potentially dangerous criminals. The taut mystery delivers a handful of twists and doesn’t make identifying the culprit easy. But the suspense is even better, with Alice’s Santa Fe trips exceptional set pieces. These entail nerve-wracking searches in a dusty attic with only a flashlight beam and noises that may or may not indicate that someone else is in the house.

An appealing sleuth headlines a solid thriller with panache.