Ghost Cave

Foster’s debut and series launch combines an independent lead with evocative descriptions of the Texas hill country. After receiving bad medical news, Ollie West asks attorney Alice Greer, who works in the backwater of Coffee Creek, to draw up a new will. Ollie wants to protect some unusual cave paintings located on the property he owns while giving his daughter, Mary, and his late brother’s stepson, Allen Debard, the right to live on his ranch during their lifetimes. Alice undertakes the laborious trek up the Guadalupe Mountains with Ollie to see the cave art for herself and get a better understanding of why their preservation is so vital to her client. Inside the cave, the realistic images, including a snake and a mountain lion, startle her. The subsequent murder of someone connected with Ollie’s estate puts Alice’s life in peril. Foster balances plot and characterization effectively, which bodes well for the series’s next entry. (BookLife)