When Dowan Purcell, a respected physician who operates a nursing home, disappears, his ex-wife hires PI Kinsey Millhone to look into it. Though Fiona Purcell is still seething over Dow's marriage to Crystal, a former stripper, the two have remained friends. While discovering that Dow is being investigated for Medicare fraud, Kinsey finds a new office to rent and becomes romantically involved with one of her landlords. Unfortunately, Mr. Right and his brother probably murdered their parents ten years ago, pinning the crime on someone who is now conveniently dead. Her effort to escape the relationship is overpowered by the urging of an insurance company investigating the missing family jewels. As always, Grafton mixes an intriguing plot with well-developed characters into an entertaining story.
Kinsey Millhone encounters a double dose of danger while searching for new digs and uncovering the whereabouts of a missing doctor, possibly involved in welfare fraud. The story slugs along at first, until Kinsey hooks up with a deadly set of twins. Then, author Sue Grafton is back on her game. Judy Kaye so completely absorbs Kinsey's character that it becomes increasingly difficult to separate performance from persona. With her wisecracking observations, it's impossible to imagine anyone else as the streetwise sleuth. While Santa Theresa (AKA Santa Barbara) is Ross Macdonald territory, in her sixteenth Kinsey Millhone adventure, Grafton is no longer the new kid in town. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
Time...
"Utterly irresistible."
The New York Times Book Review...
"ENJOYABLE . . . [FLAGG] KEEPS IT SIMPLE, SHE KEEPS IT BRIGHT, SHE KEEPS IT MOVING RIGHT ALONG--AND, MOST OF ALL, SHE KEEPS IT BELOVED."
The Christian Science Monitor...
"CAPTIVATING . . . . This is a comic novel to welcome home with open arms. . . . Wandering back and forth through forty years of history as though it were backyard gossip, Flagg tells the life story of Dena Nordstrom, America's most popular female newscaster. . . . You'd have to be a stone to read WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL! without laughing and crying."
People...
"SATISFYING . . . [FLAGG'S] FAITH IN THE HEALING POWER OF SMALL TOWNS AND FAMILY ARE REFRESHING."
The Orlando Sentinel...
"ENTERTAINING. . . Readers of Flagg's previous novels will . . . immediately feel right at home in Elmwood Springs. . . . Flagg gradually and deftly pieces together the puzzle of Dena's life. . . . It's Dena's search for that missing part of her psyche, the secret that apparently haunted her mother's life, that propels the plot. And its revelation is quite a surprise."
Southern Living...
"RICH . . . INTRIGUING . . . A CAST AND A PLACE EVERY BIT AS MEMORABLE AND TOUCHING AS THOSE AT HER WHISTLE STOP CAFE . . . [FLAGG] WAS PUT ON THIS EARTH TO WRITE."
