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REFLECTIONS by Jo Bannister St Martin's Minotaur, December 2003 268 pages $22.95 ISBN: 031231938X Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Brodie Farrell runs a detective agency called Looking for Something? She really doesn't like looking for people, but when her friend Superintendent Jack Deacon sends Hugo Daws to her, she accedes to his request. Serena Daws, his sister in law, has just been brutally murdered. His brother, Robert, the wealthy owner of a chain of grocery stores, has disappeared.

Hugo and his wife have come from South Africa to take care of the children, Juanita, 14 and Emerald, 11, but he will have to return to his architectural practice very shortly. Serena had a sister and Hugo asks Brodie to find Constance Ward, since the girls cannot leave England until the crime is solved and will have to go into as foster home if there is no close living relative in England.

Brodie reluctantly takes on the case. Her friend, Daniel Hood, a mild-mannered unassuming schoolteacher agrees to continue to home school the girls while Brodie looks for the aunt. Hugo returns to South Africa, but his wife can remain for a few weeks longer. Meanwhile, it is assumed that Robert killed his wife because she was serially unfaithful to him and has disappeared. The police are searching for him.

I was reluctant to pick up this book because it was not one of Bannister's Castlemere series of police procedurals. After I finally started reading it, I wondered why I had put it aside for so long. Bannister is superb at what she does. Daniel is trying to gain the girls' trust and is getting curt answers from Juanita. Bannister comments:

"Even in normal circumstances a 14-year-old girl carries a rag doll on one arm and a baby on the other. Her hormones are telling her she's a woman, her parents are telling her she's a child. Her physical structure is changing daily: if mood-swings are all those around her have to deal with she's handling puberty pretty well."

This is the third in the Brodie Farrell series but enough of the back story is revealed so one can start here, or go back and find ECHOES OF LIES and TRUE WITNESS, the other two books in this series.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, December 2003

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