A Hard Light: 0a Maggie Macgowen Mystery

In her fifth adventure, documentary filmmaker Maggie MacGowen (77th Street Requiem, etc.) is caught up in an intricate and long-reaching web of family problems. With her lover, LAPD detective Mike Flint, only months away from retirement and burnt out from the juvenile offenders he constantly arrests, Maggie, who has recently had a miscarriage, becomes just as disenchanted with the bleeding-heart stories of criminal youths and their dysfunctional families that she is expected to produce for her TV network bosses. After her old friend Khanh Nguyen is hurt when her home is invaded, Maggie agrees to track down the Vietnamese man who attacked her and find out why the Khanh's former friend would beat her. Meanwhile, she's busy trying to sell her San Francisco house while Mike works at placing his alcoholic father in another treatment center. As she questions people and uses her network of informants to locate Khanh's assailant, Maggie is stunned to learn that her ex-husband, Scott, was involved when Khanh and others smuggled Vietnamese museum treasures out of the country during the war. Delving into the circuitous route that the treasures have taken and finally understanding how many people are looking for the artifacts, she ends up endangering both herself and her extended family. The familial twists and turns occasionally become too obscure for the reader to follow, but Hornsby's fluent style carries this story to its satisfying conclusion. (Aug.)