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As our children grow into adulthood, there is that bittersweet moment when we release them to their own world, far away from our prying eyes and parental commandments. And hard as it is to let go, we slowly begin to relish our aloneness, the luxury of doing what we want, when we want, of building our own lives and putting ourselves first for the first time in many years. That is pretty much how Patience Smith Mackellar, age 50, feels about her daughter, Verity who flew from the nest several years earlier, married a man who Patience didn¼t care for but thrived in her own way. And now Verity is returning to the matriarchal home, separated from her husband Tom who has grown progressively more abusive to her. Bittersweet indeed, as Patience has built her own life, likes her own space, has her own love interest and Verity¼s return is unsettling, to say the least. Patience has built a small private investigation agency in the town of Port Silva, and finds that Verity adds a needed dimension to her practice. Patience at the age of 50 is not really into the sometimes physical demands of the job, so she farms those kinds of tasks out to Verity. At any given time, Patience is working for several clients, the typical small-town kind of investigation that you might expect, catching cheating spouses or business partners. Her latest case, however, has more meat to it. A young man by the name of David Simonov hires Patience to find his ex-wife, Lily, and their daughter, Sylvie. Lily married another man after they divorced. Simonov is concerned because the wife and daughter seem to have fallen off the face of the earth and he thinks they may be in trouble. Most of the legwork on the case is done by Verity, and the narrative unfolds from her point of view. The trail leads to a religious community deep in the California foothills where Verity goes undercover when she finds Sylvie is living there. The actions of the majority of the people in this community were generally hateful and narrow minded. It was difficult to read about their ways of living without reacting negatively. Sylvie had been entrusted to this group by her mother, but the treatment she receives at their hands is not very charitable. She is a wonderfully spirited little girl in a place where spunk and curiosity are punished. The relationships between the characters, particularly Patience and Verity, are realistically portrayed and the cast of the book is an interesting one. As Verity searches for Lily and Sylvie, she visits state parks and various remote outreaches and one can visualize the setting perfectly. There was a bit of a twist to the ending, but the outcome was rather predictable. Overall, the book is well written and especially strong in its characterization. The unusual mother-daughter partnership was not a gimmick but rather an attractive element to the book. Recommended.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, June 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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