The Other Lady Vanishes

March 15, 2018
Second in Quick's (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 2017, etc.) series of thrillers about 1930s Tinseltown.This installment follows a formula laid down in the first: A woman in jeopardy flees to Burning Cove, California, assumes a new identity, and soon finds a kindred spirit in a man with a dark past who just happens to be fiercely protective and, of course, handsome and sexy. This time, the fugitive is Adelaide Blake, who has escaped from Rushbrook, an insane asylum south of San Francisco. She hopes to elude her husband, Conrad Massey, who had her committed so he could steal her considerable inheritance. Adelaide's late parents were scientists killed in an accident after concocting a dangerous hallucinogenic drug, Daydream. (Or was it an accident?) Rushbrook administrators, in cahoots with Conrad, were experimenting with Daydream on Adelaide, who survived thanks to her own herbal antidote. Once in Burning Cove, where she's a tea house waitress, Adelaide and readers realize how far-flung--and far-fetched--the Daydream conspiracy is. Known as a resort town where movie stars go on well-publicized retreats, Burning Cove isn't the likeliest hideaway: Adelaide is being stalked, which is where her neighbor Jake Truett proves helpful: He was formerly in the "import-export" business, with ties to international espionage and other murky (but ultimately patriotic) endeavors. When "Psychic to the Stars" Zolanda and her assistant turn up dead in separate incidents, Adelaide suspects that someone--a dizzying array of someones, in fact--is using Daydream to make murder look like suicide (as she herself witnessed shortly before leaving Rushbrook). Conrad is glimpsed lurking about, and, as Jake and Adelaide attempt to solve the murders, they themselves become targets--taking time out to consummate their love. Although Vera, an actress, "the Most Beautiful Woman in Hollywood," has a peripheral, mostly offstage role, this volume is surprisingly short on movie dish: Burning Cove could be any resort town.Strictly phoned-in thrills.

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March 26, 2018
Fans of The Girl Who Knew Too Much will find that Quick’s complicated but entertaining follow-up, set in Hollywood’s golden age, hits the spot. The tea shop in Burning Cove, Calif., attracts movie stars and the tourists who want to gape at them. Adelaide Blake’s special tea blends always bring back return customers, such as handsome widower Jake Truett, who is visiting the seaside community to soothe his “exhausted nerves,” and Zolanda, a psychic to the stars. Adelaide understands botanicals because her parents were scientists who were killed after they developed a dangerous hallucinogenic drug. She landed in Burning Cove after being kidnapped and experimented on by doctors who were looking to develop that drug for street use—and to serve secret political agendas—on the eve of WWII. After Zolanda correctly predicts her own death, Adelaide and Jake wind up in the crosshairs of the sophisticated and violent drug ring that Adelaide only barely escaped. This romantic thriller requires careful tracking of numerous characters, but the effort pays off.

April 15, 2018

On the run after a narrow escape from an exclusive mental sanitarium (and the villains who put her there), Adelaide Blake takes refuge in tiny Burning Cove, a town along the California coast that is becoming trendy with the Hollywood set. Her job at the local tearoom is a good match for her herbalist skills, and after two months she is still wary but beginning to settle into a routine. She has even attracted the interest of businessman Jake Truett, the widower who is renting the sea cliff cottage near hers. But her pursuers are hot on her trail, and when a popular psychic predicts a death and then is found murdered, Adelaide and Jake are swept up in a web of lies that has Adelaide at its core. Red herrings and multiple baddies stir the plot in a fun-filled romp that has ties to Quick's The Girl Who Knew Too Much. VERDICT With humorous repartee, a diabolical plot, and characters that make the 1930s spring to life, Quick's lively story of murder, intrigue, and romance keeps its secrets until the very end. Quick ('Til Death Do Us Part) also writes as Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle; she lives in Seattle. [See Prepub Alert 11/21/17.]

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2018
Adelaide Blake is almost certain no one in the California coastal town of Burning Cove has made the connection between Adeline Brockton, the newest waitress at Refresh Tearoom, and Adelaide Blake, an escaped mental patient from the Rushbrook Sanitorium. By maintaining a polite distance between herself and everyone else, Adelaide hopes to keep her past under wraps, but that social buffer becomes increasingly difficult to sustain when wealthy, enigmatic businessman Jake Truett turns up to recuperate from a case of exhausted nerves. As the initial spark of attraction between them ignites into something much hotter, they find themselves forced to work ever more closely together when a murderer comes calling. After wowing readers with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (2017), the first in a fabulous new series set in 1930s California, Quick brews up another delectable blend of history, mystery, and romance set against the opulent backdrop of golden age Hollywood. Between the novel's cleverly conceived and brilliantly executed plot and Quick's signature delicious dash of dry humor, The Other Lady Vanishes is the perfect cup of literary tea for both �historical-romance readers and historical-mystery mavens.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)