CALCULATED RISK

A few murders, a series of rapes, a couple of long lost family members, and a pile of clues and characters from New Orleans all show up in Newport Beach, California, to kick off this tangled mystery. It takes an intelligent, stubborn, thoroughly modern single professional like Liz Matthews to comb through the details and emotions to solve the crimes. Kathy Garver balances the hard-boiled narrative style and the full cast of characters. She's especially effective in the scenes in which her character sees herself in the women crime victims she's trying so desperately to help. Listeners have another complicated, competent female sleuth on the scene. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB / MAR 03]