Liars All

February 1, 2010
British author Bannister opens her well-constructed ninth Brodie Farrell mystery (after 2008's Closer Still
) on a somber note with a coldhearted driver running down a young couple outside a South Downs restaurant. Bobby Carson kills Tom Sanger and seriously injures Jane Moss, his fiancée, to whom Tom had just given an exquisite black star sapphire necklace, which Bobby steals. Bobby is caught and eventually punished, but not before he sells the necklace. Bobby's mother hires Brodie, owner of Looking for Something? (an agency that specializes in finding lost objects), to locate the necklace and return it to Jane. Daniel Hood, Jane's assistant and close friend, and Det. Supt. Jack Deacon, the father of Brodie's sick child, Jonathan, provide emotional backup for Brodie, who seeks a cure for Jonathan's brain tumor. Bannister movingly reflects upon the lies sometimes told for love as Brodie makes a difficult choice in the surprising resolution.

January 1, 2010
Brodie Farrell's valedictory ninth case begins with robbery and violence and ends with an orgy of self-sacrifice.

Nine months after Robert Carson ran his car over Jane Moss and Tom Sanger so that he could steal their jewelry, Margaret Carson comes to Looking for Something? with an unusual request. Unable to beat her guilt over what her son did, she wants to find the sapphire necklace taken from Jane's neck as she lay in the street. Margaret knows that nothing can make up for Jane's crippling or her loss of her fianc, but she wants to restore the necklace, a gift to Tom from his mother, to Jane. Brodie (Closer Still, 2008, etc.) can't handle the commission because she's focused on finding a cure for her infant son Jonathan's brain tumor. So the job falls to her shy, shambling assistant, Daniel Hood. His first setback is a beating by an unknown assailant who gently urges him to drop the case. His second is a slap in the face by Jane, who struggles up from her wheelchair to reach her target. His third is getting sacked by Margaret when he admits that he probably won't be able to find the necklace. But even as Brodie and Jonathan's father, Det. Supt. Jack Deacon, hope for a miracle, Daniel's quest produces miraculous results which in turn raise ethical quandaries for Jane, Brodie, Deacon and even Dimmock crime lord Terry Walsh, Deacon's old friend and cherished antagonist.

Though Bannister's characters, especially Daniel, feel obliged to explain themselves at Ibsenesque length, the results are truly magical.

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Starred review from February 1, 2010
As Brodie Farrell ("Flawed; Closer Still") travels to find a cure for her son's cancer, friend Daniel Hood is left in charge of her detective business. He is hired to find a necklace stolen by the man who ran down a young couple, killing the man and crippling the woman. VERDICT This is a heartbreaker as only Bannister can write. The anguish of motherhood is underscored in her depiction of one parent watching her child slowly die while another is living with the knowledge of the devastation caused by a son's wanton actions. Bannister also skillfully begins the loosening of the bonds that have tied Daniel to Brodie for so long. Bannister just gets better with each book.

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