Vanished,
by Irene Hannon
Book one of
Private Justice
Revell Books
$14.99
January 2013
978-0-8007-2123-7
A bump in the
night and eyes full of terror won’t let go of Moira Harrison. Was it her Pulitzer-prize
nominated instincts, a bad memory, or guilty conscience that sent her to
Phoenix, Inc, seeking justice. But for who?
Phoenix, Inc.,
the PI firm recommended by her colleague at the newspaper doesn’t exactly fit
Moira’s idea of the office of private investigators, even though she’s never
visited one before. The receptionist’s outlandish taste of dress almost offsets
the soothing décor. And then Moira meets Cal Burke.
After hearing her
crazy story of skidding in front of a woman and hitting her in the rain on a lonely road while
Moira was reaching for her long-distance glasses, tincluding a man who said he’d help her
but didn’t, and no evidence of anything but burned rubber, Cal Burke, ex-ATF
agent and partner at Phoenix Inc., must be nuts to take her case. Pro-bono.
Even the cops were hard-put to do anything but close the file.
Moira’s
credentials as an investigative reporter help Cal believe, and when the math
doesn’t start to add up, the hunt is on for a Samaritan whose kindness could
put Moira in the afterlife before anyone’s ready. Certainly not Cal, whose
five-year mourning period for his late wife is melting away, and Moira, who’s
been burned by romance one too many times in the past.
Join this
middle-thirties couple and their friends as they search for justice for a
nameless victim.
I’ve been an
Irene Hannon fan for a while, and enjoyed this story. It’s fast-paced and
extremely well-detailed without crossing into the boring. A few little
glitches, like adding some extraneous character point of view scenes for a
situation that simply didn’t need more explanation felt like filler, but weren’t
fatal to the pace. I liked the characters and their inevitable conclusion. I
liked the investigative techniques, which might also make the details fall into
place a little too coincidentally; but overall, Vanished is a great
addition to Hannon’s repertoire. The next books in the series I’m sure will
prove to be just as entertaining.
Available
January 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker
Publishing Group.
