Girl at the End of Line

Molly and her mute sister, Nell, are rural North Carolina antique dealers, devastated when the grandmother who raised them suddenly dies in a nursing home after a stroke. Right before she died, they had discovered an old Broadway theater program with her picture on its cover, and just after her death they're given an expensive emerald ring she'd kept hidden from them. The sisters realize that there is much about their grandmother's past--and about the unsolved murder of their mother when they were children--that they don't know. As the siblings travel to New York in search of long-lost relatives, Molly begins to suspect that her grandmother, also, may have been slain. That suspicion gains weight when she and Nell return to North Carolina to find that their shop has blown up, along with the friend who was watching it for them. Determined to go on with their lives, including their search for their roots, the sisters travel to England. At their extended family's palatial home there, they learn that when their ancient great-grandmother dies, they will inherit a fortune--because the other possible heirs are all dead, some of them in a plane crash only a month ago. So now Molly must determine who is stalking family members before she and Nell are added to the list of victims. Mathes's (The Girl with the Phony Name) third novel begins with an intriguing premise and spins out in clean prose. Weak characters and a strained plot severely test reader credulity, however. (Apr.)