Half Moon Bay

May 4, 2020
In bestseller Kellerman and son Jesse’s middling third mystery featuring deputy coroner Clay Edison (after 2018’s A Measure of Darkness), Edison is called in after a construction project in a Berkeley, Calif., park unearths the remains of an infant. The location of the find leads activists opposing the construction to suggest that the bones belong to a Native American child and that the development be halted until the site is checked for other remains. Meanwhile, wealthy software designer Peter Franchette wants Edison to determine whether the skeleton is that of his missing sister, about whom he knows almost nothing, not even her name. Though Edison is able to rule out that possibility after concluding that the bones are male, he somewhat implausibly pursues evidence to see if he can give Franchette any answers. Ponderous prose is a minus (“I engraved their image in my mind, an icon to clutch close as I left them behind and descended to the realm of the dead”). The plotline and characters aren’t indicative of either author’s best work.

Narrator Dennis Boutsikaris has a gift for dramatizing conversations, a skill that goes beyond creating character voices. In this audiobook, he uses this talent to drive the complicated plot. The third in the Clay Edison series overlays two mysteries. One concerns the search for a tech entrepreneur's missing sibling; the other deals with a child's remains discovered during the reclamation of Berkeley's People's Park. Though the story occasionally meanders, the Kellermans paint a realistic backdrop of the Bay Area, especially the contradictory spirits of the East Bay. "Everything in Berkeley's political," says Edison, "except politics. That's personal." With Boutsikaris's engaging narration and the Kellermans' light touch, HALF MOON BAY makes for an enjoyable listen. R.W.S. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine