Secrets to the Grave

November 22, 2010
A horrific murder rocks the town of Oak Knoll, Calif., in the chilling sequel to Hoag's Deeper than the Dead), set in 1986. The victim is 28-year-old artist Marissa Fordham, the single mother of Haley, a four-year-old found partially strangled and barely clinging to life next to her mother's stabbed and mutilated body. Det. Tony Mendez and his capable crew investigate the crime, while child advocate Anne Leone and her husband, former FBI special agent Vince Leone, take temporary custody of Haley. Among the several suspects is attorney Steve Morgan, the estranged husband of Sara Morgan, whose daughter, Wendy, found a victim of the accused See-No-Evil killer, Peter Crane, who's about to go on trial. Adding extra tension are Anne's efforts to help disturbed 12-year-old Dennis Farnham and the disappearance of Marissa's best friend, Gina Kemmer. Newcomers will have no trouble getting into this suspense novel rich in pre-DNA detecting methods.

December 1, 2010

The "See-No-Evil" serial killer is jailed awaiting trial, and the last thing Sheriff's Detective Tony Mendez needs is another murder victim, especially a beautiful young woman brutally stabbed and slashed.

Marissa Fordham, a rising young artist and the protégé of the wealthy Milo Bordain, is discovered murdered in her isolated cottage. Haley, her 4-year-old daughter, rests badly injured on her mother's bloody corpse. Mendez catches the case, ably assisted by Vince Leone, a retired FBI profiler who helped solve the "See-No-Evil" mystery. Leone has retired and married a local teacher, Anne Navarre, who was almost murdered by the jailed serial killer. Anne is now studying child psychology and working as a court-appointed special advocate in juvenile cases, and she persuades a reluctant Vince to let her care for Haley. That necessary and time-consuming task deflects her from counseling an apparently psychopathic middle-school student who has stabbed a classmate. Mendez and Leone have more than one suspect in Marissa's brutal murder, even though the victim isn't all—or is more than—she seems to be. Hoag (Deeper Than the Dead, 2009, etc.) again stages her mystery in Oak Knoll, a fictional town somewhere near the beautiful landscape surrounding Santa Barbara and Lompoc, Calif., and her gift for description makes the area come alive. The author also discovers a suitable set of suspects ranging from Bordain's Mercedes-dealer son, a mathematical genius and college professor with Asperger's Syndrome and mother issues, and a prosperous and adulterous attorney who may or may not have been linked to the "See-No-Evil" serial killer. The good guys are less dramatic, although Hoag's character sketches are memorable, right down to minor players like the county sheriff, Cal Dixon.

Fans of literate mysteries will appreciate the complex but realistic story, the satisfying resolution and the descriptive writing.

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December 15, 2010
The follow-up to Deeper Than the Dead (2009) begins in November 1986. The See-No-Evil killers trial is nearing when a womans mutilated body is found. Detective Tony Mendez and FBI profiler Vince Leone, along with Vinces wife, Anne (who in the first book was nearly done in by the accused See-No-Evil killer), race to find the perpetrator before he kills someone else. The book is set a couple of decades later than Colleen McCulloughs Carmine Delmonico novels, but it shares the same premise. Its a crime novel set in a time before computerized databases, instantaneous data sharing, and high-tech forensics. The story is well designed, although one of the big plot twists is very similar to twists in recent thrillers by Lisa Gardner and Linwood Barclay, and the characters are believable and (mostly) likable. Hoag does an excellent job of exploring how a shocking crime can affect a small community. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hoags Night Sins cracked the New York Times bestseller list in 1995, and her next nine books followed suit. We make this one an odds-on favorite to extend the streak to 11 in a row.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)