Murder in Mendocino

It's rainy season in Northern California, a discouraging time for freelance writer Charlotte Kent to refuse bread-and-butter assignments in order to write a history of her adopted town, Pelican Rock. Charlotte is even more discouraged when she finds someone else in town has begun research for the same project. When that writer is found dead from a shotgun blast and the weapon is traced to Charlotte's young neighbor, the neglected and suddenly missing 12-year-old son of two vestigial hippies, Charlotte begins to worry as well. Continuing work on the book, Charlotte interviews Pelican Rock's established spinster set. Loosened tongues hint at dark secrets about a handsome, oft-wed doctor who mysteriously vanished nearly 60 years earlier. With courage and wit, Charlotte persists in her search for both boy and story, surviving a gunshot wound and a near-burial as she unearths a very modern drug deal with roots deep in the past. Romance and self-determination also figure in the twisting route to the conclusion of this satisfying complex mystery. Spunky Charlotte is a bright addition to the roster of female detective figures at work and play in the Pacific Northwest. (February 9)