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Closely Akin to Murder (1996)

by Joan Hess
(#11 in Claire Malloy)

Veronica 'Ronnie' Landonwood is phoning from Chicago to ask Claire for help in tracking down a blackmailer who threatens to expose her past. Ronnie had been in jail for murder but has rehabilitated herself into a prestigious scientist with a shot at a Nobel Prize - unless her sordid past hits the tabloids. Now she wants Claire to go back to Acapulco, where, as a teenager, she killed a famous Hollywood producer who tried to rape her. This eerie call gives Claire some uneasy feelings about where this odyssey might lead. Taking her sixteen-year-old daughter Caron along on the trip ranks as one of her less quick-witted Ideas… especially since both mother and daughter are likely to be confronting danger and/or jail. For some mysterious person in Acapulco, Claire's investigation constitutes a clear and present threat. And the winding road past is leading her toward a truth about the murder night that may proved to be more sinister than a teenaged Ronnie's desperate act of violence. In fact, its reverberations are still being felt - as body after dead body pops up wherever Claire asks a few leading questions. It's enough to make this nosy bookseller fear that the next corpse may be her own.