DECEIVED

Her second case finds Sanibel PI Hannah Smith (Gone, 2012) just as attractive, just as game and just as clueless.

You know your day isn’t off to a good start when a giant tarpon lands on the deck of your fishing boat and sweeps your two latest clients into the shark-infested waters. But even after Hannah fishes out Delmont Chatham and Joel Ransler, things continue to go wrong. Her difficult mother, Loretta, is even more fretful than usual because she hasn’t heard from her old friend and bingo partner Rosanna "Pinky" Helms. Loretta’s new neighbor, Dr. Alice Candor, seems determined to harass both Loretta and Hannah, maybe even to the point of getting Loretta’s house condemned and Loretta committed. And since Dr. Candor and her ineffectual CPA husband, Raymond, have already pled guilty to a slew of felonies concerning their house-of-cards health care empire back in Ohio, her enmity is serious business. There are bright spots along the way. Ransler, unmasked as a special prosecutor for neighboring Senatee County, hires the inexperienced Hannah, who inherited her private eye’s license from her uncle Jake, to investigate Fisherfolk, a charitable organization so patently bogus that Pinky’s no-account children, Mica and Crystal, are listed as directors along with Levi Thurloe, the mentally challenged giant Hannah protected from bullying when they were in school together. And Hannah enjoys a few sweet nights with longtime series hero Doc Marion Ford (Night Moves, 2013, etc.) before he takes off for Venezuela and leaves her with only Deputy Liberty Tupplemeyer for help. The two strong women bond affectingly, but they’re no great shakes as detectives.

More interested in giving its heroine good scenes and good dialogue than a good mystery or the skills to solve it. The pace is so relaxed readers may find themselves nodding off.