Only the Good: A Jack Hart Mystery

Reeve’s enjoyable third whodunit featuring Seattle attorney Jack Hart (after No Good Deed) finds Jack handling a lawsuit against insurance company American Fidelity. A paper mill owned by one of that company’s clients, Squalicum Paper Products, was leaking processing chemicals into Bellingham Bay, which Washington State ordered the paper company to clean up. After American Fidelity refused to pay for the cleanup, because SPP had knowingly polluted the bay, SPP sued. Jack’s defense case appears in good shape after an SPP employee concedes having been aware of the ongoing pollution. That changes when he learns that the SPP mill burned down the night following his deposition, that its owner was killed in the fire, and that the dead man, coincidentally, was Jack’s estranged father, who abandoned Jack when he was five. Jack becomes a suspect in the murder—and in a subsequent attempted murder that occurs after he meets his father’s other family, which includes four half-sisters. Reeve admirably balances character development and tense plotting. (BookLife)