China Lake

May 26, 2008
Meg Gardiner's Evan Delaney series, until recently only available in the U.K. (where the American Gardiner lives with her family), is coming to U.S. readers this summer.
China Lake
Meg Gardiner
. Obsidian
, $7.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-451-22455-2

After giving up her law career to work as a legal researcher and science fiction writer, Evan Delaney is also helping her fighter pilot brother, Brian, raise his six-year-old son, Luke. But soon Luke's mother, Tabitha, reappears as a member of the Remnant, a fundamentalist religious group that targets the funeral of Evan's friend Claudine, who died of AIDS. Led by the fanatical pastor Peter Wyoming, the Remnant preaches of a coming apocalypse and urges its members to cleanse themselves of all things satanic. Tabitha demands custody of Luke; the church attacks Evan for her “sacrilegious” books and Brian for his role in the evil known as the federal government. Things heat up when a member of the Remnant is murdered, and the police arrest Brian as the key suspect. Gardiner nimbly turns what could be a tired plot into a suspenseful thriller, thanks in part to the quick-witted—and even quicker tempered—Evan.
Gardiner's stand-alone novel, The Dirty Secrets Club
(Dutton, July), will be the author's first simultaneous release in the U.S. and the U.K. Obsidian plans to release the remaining Evan Delaney novels monthly. China Lake
's June release will be followed by Mission Canyon
in July, Jericho Point
in August, Crosscut
in September and, in October, Kill Chain
.

Starred review from June 1, 2008
Santa Barbara attorney Evan Delaney is gutsy and tough, but she has a tender side, too. She dotes on her nephew, Luke, whos staying with her while his fighter-pilot father, Brian, is deployed overseas. (Brian, whos stationed at the Mojave Desert naval weapons-testing center, China Lake, has been divorced from Lukes mother, Tabitha, for years.) Evans peaceful cohabitation with Luke is thrown into chaos when Tabitha returns to town under the spell of the Remnant, a fundamentalist sect arming itself for the apocalypse with artillery and biological weapons. Tabitha wants Luke back--no questions asked. Brian comes home, and when the sects eerie leader is found dead in Brians backyard, the career military man is thrown in jail with little hope of release. Evan and her boyfriend, Jesse, come to Brians defense, prompting a flood of memories for Evan, who grew up in China Lake. Gardiner, an American who lives in Great Britain, renders a cast of compelling characters and a hair-raising plot that never stops. This is her second novel to be published in the States (after The Dirty Secrets Club, earlier this year); happily for readers, four more Evan Delaney mysteries are slated for release this summer and fall.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)