10/26/2020

MWA Grand Master Clark and Burke’s workmanlike sixth Under Suspicion novel (after 2018’s You Don’t Own Me) finds widow Laurie Moran, the producer of Under Suspicion, a reality TV show that investigates cold cases, engaged to marry Alex Buckley, a well-known criminal defense attorney and a former host of Laurie’s show. Before the wedding, the happy couple gather in the Hamptons with their families and friends. Timmy, Laurie’s 10-year-old son, is playing on the beach with Alex’s seven-year-old nephew, Johnny. The boys are under the care of a teenage babysitter, whose attention strays to a good-looking lifeguard. Johnny disappears when the babysitter and the lifeguard take the kids for an ice cream, but was Timmy the real target for the kidnapper? Laurie’s father, the former first deputy commissioner of the NYPD, believes that the abduction is connected to a murder case he handled 18 years earlier. Plenty of motives and suspects keep the reader guessing as the action builds to a dramatic finale. Never mind the serviceable prose and stock characters. The authors show once again how a mother can turn into a courageous warrior when her child’s life is at stake. Agent: Bob Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (Nov.)