Hiding in Plain Sight

June 1, 2018
A woman with secrets struggles to lead a normal life.Kate Weller's brother, Liam, is in prison for bank robbery, and his associates have threatened Kate in an attempt to keep him quiet. She's trying to outrun her brother's checkered past by becoming an itinerant private eye. Though her boss, Nate Price, has given her the opportunity to move from Savannah to other cities to work on new cases, her past keeps catching up to her. On her way to a party given by a fellow detective's client, Kate is run off the road and her car's pushed into a creek. So she's happy to move on to a new job in Charleston as Jill Wyatt, who's charged with tracking down a woman named Emma, whose biological sister, Charlotte Sugarman, will die without a liver transplant and whose last hope is to track down the sister she's never met; both women were adopted at birth by different families. Kate, or Jill, rents an apartment over the Italian restaurant owned by the gregarious Manfredi family and finds herself attracted to Eric Manfredi, a hunk who can cook like an angel. She draws closer to them when someone trashes their dumpster, Eric's father is robbed, and the restaurant is damaged by a mysterious fire. When Eric's father is arrested for the murder of his archrival, Salvatore Borelli, she vows to help. Despite her preoccupation with the Manfredis' problems, she manages to find Emma. But she's ambivalent about her involvement when she learns that Emma is a Christian Scientist whose faith forbids medical intervention. As she confronts her problems, she works both cases and finds herself in unexpected danger.Ellis (Midnight On The Mississippi, 2015, etc.) introduces a new series with a pleasant, unexciting kickoff that's more romance than mystery.

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June 25, 2018
At the start of this muddled series launch from Ellis (the Secrets of the South series), fledgling PI Kate Weller leaves her home in Savannah, Ga., for a party on Tybee Island hosted by a client, but she has good reason to worry her troubled past is catching up with her. Sure enough, en route, Kate’s car is forced off the highway in a spray of bullets. Reluctant to cooperate with the police, Kate is glad to escape on her first official case to Charleston, S.C., in search of a liver transplant patient’s sister. Kate takes a room over a restaurant and promptly gets “tangled up with a handsome chef whose family history sounded like a Mario Puzo movie.” When the chef’s father is arrested for murder, Kate decides to handle that case, too. Her investigative technique relies on bursting into tears (thus getting policemen to share information), calling the computer whiz back at the agency to find difficult addresses, and going to lunch with the chef’s gossipy grandma. A mishmash of backstory bogs down this unwieldy mix of action and romance. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency.

July 1, 2018

Soon after she's taken on as a traveling private investigator for Price Investigations, 25-year-old Kate Weller is hunted down by men linked to her brother, imprisoned in Florida. While Kate's boss agrees to keep her on, he sends her to Charleston, SC, under a new name, Jill Wyatt, to track down the sister of an adopted woman who is now desperate for a new liver. She also takes an interest in the troubles of her landlord's family when their Italian restaurant suffers petty vandalism and then arson that traps Jill in her apartment upstairs. When her sexy landlord's father is arrested for murder, she sets out to prove his innocence. VERDICT Ellis (Sunset in Old Savannah) spins off her "Secrets of the South" series with a new protagonist working for the same detective agency. As in her previous books, the author joins romantic suspense with faith-based overtones. Ellis's readers will enjoy the overlap, while others may find the immature but spirited Jill to be an awkward sleuth with good intentions.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
Something in PI Kate Weller's past puts her in danger. So the newest member of Price Investigations in Natchez, Mississippi, decides to hide in plain sight on her new assignment in Charleston, where she rents a room above the Manfredis' family-owned restaurant, Bella Trattoria, and takes the name Jill Wyatt. Her task is to find the biological sister of adoptee Charlotte Sugarman, who's near death from liver failure but unable to find a matching organ donor. But once having found Charlotte's sister, Ella Norris, Jill discovers that the donor situation is complicated by the devout Norris family's Christian Science religion. Meanwhile, Jill is dealing with her mutual attraction to chef Eric Manfredi as she is increasingly drawn into the voluble family's affairs. Ellis, who has several series to her credit, here launches the Marked for Retribution mysteries. Further entries are bound to explore the past of adoptee Kate and her adoptive brother, Liam, who's serving a prison sentence in Florida. This should appeal to readers looking for mystery with a touch of religion as they follow the exploits of sometimes naive and headstrong Kate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)