cover image The Price You Pay

The Price You Pay

Hannah Wakefield. St. Martin's Press, $16.95 (245pp) ISBN 978-0-312-04989-8

This engrossing debut traces the passions of American activists of the late 1960s as it picks up their lives two decades later. Berkeley alumna Dee Street, now a partner in an all-woman London law firm, is acting to free a young Chilean, Carlos, from a mental institution. She is aided by psychiatrist David Blake, who asks her to draw up wills for him and his wife, journalist Amanda Finch, another '60s Berkeley alum. When Amanda and Carlos are found together, murdered, David, with whom Dee has fallen in love, is chief suspect. Tracking down Amanda's California connections, while pursued by two unsavory-looking Hispanics, Dee and David discover that Amanda may have been living a double life, possibly as a government agent. Another, related, murder propels the the couple on a frantic race against a resurgent CIA, beginning to recover influence after the Nixon years. This lively thriller/ murder mystery, written under a pen name by two American women living in London, ably captures the ambience of both '80s London and '60s California. (Sept.)