Publisher's Weekly Review
Retired Cincinnati police officer Maggie Wise, the protagonist of this intriguing series launch from Fields (the Josie Gray mysteries), has relocated to Santa Cruz, Fla., after the death of her husband of 20 years. Maggie, who augments her pension by hosting a radio call-in show, drinks too much and trusts too little. When two prepubescent girls are abducted in two neighboring communities, the police ask Maggie to interview Kelly and Andre O'Neal, the parents of one of the victims. After little more than a day, the girls are found drugged but otherwise unharmed in secluded spots near their homes. Meanwhile, Oscar LeBlanc, "a hematologist specializing in age-related diseases," is found dead in his office, an apparent suicide. When evidence suggests foul play, suspicion falls on Andre, who believed LeBlanc was behind his daughter's abduction. Maggie has to prove Andre's innocence, despite Andre subsequently confessing to the murder. Fields delivers loads of entertaining twists, authentic characters, and shifting motives. Readers will be glad to see more of complex, savvy Maggie. (July)
Kirkus Review
A police veteran and a distraught mother take on a doctor obsessed with finding the fountain of youth. Maggie Wise's decision to retire to Santa Cruz, the Florida town where her husband tried and failed to beat cancer, might very well belie her name. After 25 years in law enforcement, Maggie's settled into a new routine as a part-time radio talk show host for WKQE and a part-time costumer at a strip club that gives her far too much time to drink and brood about her husband. The man's she seeing, Mark Hamilton, is a police chief who can't help thinking that Maggie's dating him because she misses her old job. She proves him at least partly right when two little girls disappear and Maggie takes up Kelly O'Neal, one of their mothers, as a cause. Maggie helps trace the disappearance and reappearance of Kelly's 10-year-old daughter to Dr. Oscar LeBlanc, who's devoted his life to reversing the aging process and relies, like a white-coated vampire, on young blood to get what he needs to treat aging Floridians for large sums. Despite Mark's warnings to leave it alone, Maggie's first case as an ex-cop tosses her into a sea of embezzlement, implausible medicine, and murder as she veers from professional insight to emotional neediness until you're torn between hugging her and shaking her. Though she keeps digging herself in more and more deeply, the heroine's outsized heart wins forgiveness for her missteps. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Two girls from different sides of the tracks in fictional Santa Cruz, Florida, have been kidnapped, but to the kidnapper their origins are of no matter: Dr. LeBlanc is a society darling who wants to transfuse their blood into recipients who are desperate to be young again. The story centers on Amaya, the poorer of the missing children, and her mother, Kelly, who are helped by Maggie Wise, a former cop who has retired to Santa Cruz. Maggie has a radio show that centers on local news, which heats up considerably after the kidnappings and even more after LeBlanc is found dead. While Maggie struggles to adapt to life as a widow who drinks too much, she's dating the local police chief and has inside details on the case, which she uses to the fullest. Questions of bioethics mix with greed and family loyalty as Maggie gets dangerously close to returning to the life of a cop. Fields (the Tony Hillerman Prize--winning author of the Josie Gray mystery series) delivers a satisfying look at the underbelly of moneyed medicine. This one is for Michael Crichton fans.
