Keep Still

Unrelated murder cases plague Lincoln Prairie, Ill., police detective Marti MacAlister in her fifth outing (following Done Wrong, 1995). Elderly Sophie Admunds's demise looks accidental until the medical examiner's report finds oil on her shoes and a bruise more in keeping with a push than her fatal fall down the stairs. Her elder son, who had been pressuring her to sell her house, is the prime suspect. But as Marti and her acerbic partner, Vic Jessenovik, methodically investigate, another death echoes the first when the coroner assures them that the drowning of motel manager Liddy Fields was no accident. Treating the cases as separate, they are stunned when a link between the two victims emerges: both had been advocates of an abused child who had gone missing seven years earlier. Marti and Vic must follow up on the older case in order to solve the more recent murders. Bland pulls no punches in this tale as she bares the harrowing realities of child abuse for her readers. (July)