CASE OF LIES by Perri O'Shaughnessy
The sister act of Mary and Pamela O'Shaughnessy who write under the name of Perri O'Shaughnessy return with another mystery featuring Lake Tahoe attorney Nina Reilly. CASE OF LIES is the tenth novel in this series and is one of their best stories and one of their worst.
As the book opens Nina is back in Lake Tahoe practicing law. She is approached by her masseuse to take her uncle's case. He is a man whose eight months pregnant wife was killed in the course of a robbery at a Lake Tahoe motel. The couple was not involved in the robbery but a stray bullet struck his wife and killed her. The shooter has not been found and neither have the robbery victims. They fled the scene and have not been heard from since.
Nina takes the case and is aided by her secretary Sandy and Sandy's son Wish, who takes over as a private investigator for Nina. The search immediately begins to try to find the robbery victims, who the readers discover are students who have a brilliance in math. Here is where the worst part of the book comes in.
For some misguided reason Perri O'Shaughnessy weighs down the story with pages and pages and pages of mathematical theories along with details of how they are formulated. To Perri, I say, who cares!!!! If I wanted to learn about math and its higher functions I would take a college course. I do not need it in the middle of a story I am reading for pleasure.
The rest of the book is engrossing and fun. Even the subplot concerning Nina's son Bob and his biological father is acceptable. It doesn't impact on the basic plot but it does give insight into the characters we have come to know and care about during the past few books.
A mystery is read for one reason alone - to solve the mystery. Character development and subplots are fine as long as they do not overpower this central core movement. In CASE OF LIES the introduction of mathematical history and theories are annoying and unnecessary information. They don't destroy the enjoyment factor of the book, but they do come close.
You have to sift through a lot to get the basic plot of CASE OF LIES in focus. Let's hope Perri O'Shaughnessy has learned from the mistakes she made in telling this tale - and that she doesn't repeat them in the future.
CASE OF LIES is published by Delacourte Press. It contains 388 pages and sells for $25.00.