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EXILE TRUST
by Vincent H. O'Neil
St Martin's Minotaur, July 2008
224 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 031238064X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It seems routine enough: track down the holders of some safety deposit boxes so that the auditors don’t have a fit when they show up. What could be simpler for Frank Cole, who has the computer chops and the time to help out a friend of a friend?

It can’t possibly be that easy . . . there wouldn’t be a story if that were the case. Dorothea Freehoffer’s husband comes in to clean out her box. Not a problem, except that Dorothea just died in a freak accident and her husband has been dead for several years. So who was the guy pretending to be her husband, and what was in her box that was so important? It takes Frank a while to figure it all out, and he meets some interesting people in the process.

Dorothea wasn’t a very nice person, actually. She seems to have had one friend, the lady who lived behind her. Wilma Gibson knows more than she lets on, about Dorothea and about whatever it is that Dorothea had. Frank keeps following leads, most of which seem to take him into the past and some real estate dealings involving Dorothea’s late husband.

Frank’s old college roommate is in town for all of this. Mark has a job offer from a big law firm in Florida; he’s in town for the final interviews. Mark is Frank’s lawyer in the bankruptcy trial that is still hanging over Frank’s head; the judge ruled that Frank’s future earnings would go to pay off his debtors, which is unusual and harsh. Mark has mixed feelings about the new job, and is using Frank as his sounding board; this causes Frank to reevaluate his reactions to his own case.

EXILE TRUST is a good mystery with entertaining characters and a decent plot. Frank continues to grow as a character; this probably has something to do with O’Neil’s growth as a writer. EXILE TRUST is a solid continuation of the series. Take a nice little vacation in Florida with Frank; it’ll be fun.

Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, May 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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