Too Many Secrets

Laura McClendon
Turn Key Press (2005)
ISBN 097649812X
Reviewed by Ellen Hogan for Reader Views (6/06) 

Dr. Paul Moorehouse is dead. He has been shot three times in the chest. His wife, Eleanor, hires Cassandra Masters to find out who killed him. Eleanor fears that the police are looking at her as the killer. Cassie takes the case and with the help of her good friend, David Johnson, they set out to find who killed the good doctor.

As Cassie and David start looking into the case they come up with quite a list of suspects. When Cassie meets with the doctor's best friend John Carter, he gives her a lock box. He says he has no idea what is in it but Paul asked him to rent a safety deposit box for him. The day before Paul died they went to the bank together and retrieved the box. Paul told John that if he died, John was to destroy the box without ever looking at it. Cassie was certain the box held the clue as to who killed Paul.

She and David open the box together and find that Paul had been blackmailing just about everyone he knew - from his publicist, to his partners and his wife's best friend. Each one had a secret they did not want to reveal. David goes over Paul's financial records and finds that he did not keep the blackmail money but donated it to charities. The secrets range from homosexuality, to impregnating a prostitute, to bribing a college for passing grades and earning a living as a porn star. If the secrets were made public they would ruin many lives.

They learn that a lot of the secrets Paul got from a prostitute that he met when he lived on the west coast. She had moved closer to home when she became pregnant and the baby's father would not marry her. Cassie sends David to learn what he can from the girls that work for Delilah Brown. Just as he was getting close, Delilah is murdered. Her murder was the same as Paul's. Now they have another murder to solve and solve it they do.

This book is Ms. McClendon's first novel and it is a good one.  Her descriptions are good and the book flows nicely with the story line. There is a great chemistry between the main characters. That alone is worth reading the book for. Anyone who enjoys a good mystery will like this book.  

Would I recommend this book? Yes, it keeps your interest the whole way through. It is also fast paced and very entertaining.

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