Someone's Watching

December 13, 2010
Potts's shiver-rich follow-up to In Their Blood takes a hard look at Miami's intense South Beach club scene. Bartender Robbie Ivy learns that she has a half-sister the hard way, after her estranged father shows up on her doorstep wanting help in locating his other daughter, Kaitlin "Kate" Brooks, and Kate's best friend, Joanne Sparks, who's later found drowned in Indian Creek. Robbie turns for advice to her former boyfriend, Jeremy Stroeb, who suggests she consult Det. Judy Lieber. The stakes rise after Robbie meets self-help author Gina Fieldstone, wife of politician Stanford Fieldstone—and a local congressman kills himself following a visit to a popular bar the same night Robbie was there. Potts has created a sympathetic crime solver in Robbie, who wants to reclaim Jeremy and forge a new relationship with her family before it's too late.

January 1, 2011
Potts second effort is a twisty mystery that draws on headline newsspecifically, the drugging of high-school girls on vacation, who are then kidnapped and forced into prostitution. In one eventful day, heroine Robbie Ivy, who left a high-powered corporate job to be a bartender on Miamis South Beach, learns that she has a half sister she never knew about and that the girl has vanished into the neon jungle of South Florida. In her attempts to find the girl and bring about a reconciliation with their father, she bumps up against a diverse crew of eccentrics. One is surely a murderer, and this is where Potts excels: at camouflaging which plot twists are red herrings and which contain the truth. The revelations in the last few chapters are stunningly well handled. This is far grittier than the typical mixing of mystery and chick lit, but its effectively told from a female perspective. Thus, we have Robbie and her lover discussing the validity of their relationship while they stalk a killer. An appealing sleuth and a beguiling mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)