High-powered Los Angeles businesswoman Lana Rubicon relocates to a quiet coastal town in central California to recover from cancer treatments. Her isolation ends when her teenage granddaughter, Jack, discovers a body while recreating in the local slough. After Jack becomes a primary suspect in the homicide investigation, Lana emerges from her sickbed to apply her corporate interrogation skills to the local community. Alongside her daughter Beth, Lana investigates land developers and conservationists to uncover the killer and clear Jack’s name.
Readers who enjoy amateur sleuth narratives centered on multi-generational family dynamics will find a story focused on practical reconciliation through shared labor. It appeals to those interested in the friction between career-driven parents and their children, situated within the specific ecology of the California coast. The audience gains a procedural mystery that prioritizes the reconstruction of strained domestic bonds and the necessity of vulnerability during physical illness.
Practical, clear-cut and escapist; an easy read.
Best for readers like The Escapist Adventurer. Which reader are you?
Insights from Mother-Daughter Murder Night
The way the family uses dark humor to cope with cancer is very real. It is their armor against the scary stuff.
“She was a woman who didn't know how to be sick.”
Lana is a powerhouse who hates being a patient. Seeing her fight to stay sharp while her body fails is so relatable.
“They were three generations of Rubicons, crossed and uncrossable.”
The three generations of women have totally different ways of loving each other. Sometimes that love feels more like a collision than a hug.
Beth spends so much time being the perfect nurse and mom. She forgets that she is also allowed to be her own person.
- Published
- 2023
- Publisher
- William Morrow
- ISBN
- 9780063315044
- Language
- EN
