The Sterling Inheritance
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest.
Private investigator Jason Wilder has the toughest boss in River City: It's his mother. She and her husband were legendary police detectives when Jason was growing up. Wild Bill Wilder has since died, and Mom is running the detective agency they had founded with a loving but definitely iron hand.
Working under Mom (also known by her staff as "Queen Victoria" and "Her Highness") is adventurous, no denying that. Jason's present assignment, to locate a missing businessman, leads to some unexpected surprises. He locates the man in a dreary motel, with orders to return him to his worried wife. Instead, the man shoots at him. Before he can recover from the attempt, he is surrounded by police, who punch him, handcuff him, and inform him that his subject is wanted for homicide.
From there the case expands, plunging Jason into some twisted bypaths. Why are the members of the suspect's family (including his enchanting sister) fighting tooth and nail over a dilapidated movie house the sister is restoring? Why was the dead man's body found just outside it? Is there something hidden there---and what? With Jason doing the footwork and Mom supplying the know-how, they get dangerously close, and Mom is going to have to take a hand herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Siverling's day job is with the Sacramento County, Calif., District Attorney's office abduction team that recovers kidnapped children, but the engaging first mystery for which he won a St. Martin's/Private Eye Writers of America award has nothing to do with abducted children. What it does have is an interesting mother and son team of PIs, Victoria and Jason Wilder. Mom is a formidable former police detective who keeps a one-eyed German shepherd named Beowulf and runs the Midnight Investigation Agency. She provides employment for some retired cop colleagues and her 20-something son, a would-be rock guitarist, who has trouble getting enough work in their hometown of River City and who, despite his grumbling, likes and is quite good at being a private dick. (His late father was also a cop, so it's in his blood.) Mother and son have a brisk though affectionate relationship: when she says "I love you son," he replies, "I'm moderately fond of you, too, lady." The plot, like the title, has Raymond Chandler overtones, including a wealthy family, a soft son accused of murder and a tough, disillusioned older sister. But Siverling adds enough clever modern touches, especially in the relationship between Victoria and Jason, to make this look like the start of a promising series.