Bearing Secrets: A Wil Hardesty Mystery

In his second time out (after The Innocents), ""off and on"" PI Wil Hardesty takes on a case with a legacy of ""sins... that cast shadows across generations."" Rooted in the turbulent, anti-war movement of the 1960s, this complex drama has a cast that includes terrorist groups, corrupt attorney Lincoln Stillman and Stillman's lethally beautiful wife, Monika. Hardesty is also struggling to keep his marriage together after his young son's death and his wife's recent miscarriage. The discovery of a plane that crashed in a California lake in 1974, and its $2-million cargo, precipitates former anti-war activist Max Pfeiffer's suicide. He leaves behind his daughter, Holly, and, with her, his conviction that the FBI murdered her mother. Holly is equally convinced that the FBI is responsible for her father's death. Holly hires Hardesty. He turns up solid evidence linking Max to kidnapping, bank robbery and murder 20 years before, which provides a world-shattering epiphany for Holly. After she is kidnapped, Hardesty must find her before she is transformed into the ""perfect terrorist"" to serve Monika's cause. Although sometimes tenuous, the links between Max, Holly, Stillman and Monika are intriguing enough to keep the reader enthralled as they unfold. (June)