Cotton

May 30, 2016
Heald’s ambitious second entry in his Clarkeston Chronicles (after 2014’s Death in Eden) pits a varied group of amateur sleuths looking into the five-year-old disappearances of college student Diana Cavendish and her boyfriend, Jacob Granville, from Clarkeston, Ga., against well-hidden and powerful adversaries. Newspaper reporter James Murphy, who covered the original story, finds recently posted photos of Cavendish on a soft-core website, which he reports to Atlanta first assistant U.S. attorney Melanie Wilkerson. Wilkerson calls in L.A. sociology professor Stanley Hopkins, the hero of Death in Eden, for help in tracing the website owners. Pushback soon follows. Wilkerson gets a warning not to investigate, and Murphy’s house is trashed and his laptop stolen. Gradually, the trio piece together a complex story that begins with Granville’s trip to Geneva, Switzerland, years earlier and involves the World Trade Organization and powerful U.S. cotton interests. The action builds to an ingeniously satisfying resolution.

Starred review from July 1, 2016

Browsing a soft-porn site, journalist James Murphy discovers a picture of Diana Cavendish, a beautiful young woman who disappeared from her apartment in Clarkeston, GA, along with her boyfriend, five years earlier. Murphy covered the case and feels a connection to Cavendish. He brings his information to Melanie Wilkerson, an assistant U.S. attorney, and asks her to investigate. She calls in Los Angeles law professor Stanley Hopkins, who specializes in cases involving women in the sex industry. The trio uncover a global network of fraud and death. VERDICT In law professor Heald's second series outing (after Death in Eden), the plotting and characterizations are faultless. This is sure to please devotees of academic mysteries and those who enjoy the government conspiracy novels of Jeff Abbott and Vince Flynn.

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