Product Description

When the owners of a luxury yacht are found dead from gunshot wounds, sailing instructor Kellie Montgomery knows she can find the killer. Despite the warnings from both the police and her family, she follows clues that lead her onto some very rought--and dangerous--waters...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2244923 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 317 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Wilcox's debut, and the first of her Elliot Bay mystery series, features plucky sailing instructor Kellie Montgomery. A 40-year-old widow, Kellie lives alone aboard a sailboat moored in a marina near Seattle. A neighboring slip harbors the yacht belonging to the attorney who found Kellie a daughter through private adoption 20 years earlier. When the attorney and his wife are discovered murdered out on the bay, Kellie's curiosity is aroused, though given her tenuous connections to the couple her motivations are murky. Still, Wilcox does a good job of bringing depth and resonance to Kellie and her unusual life. The storyline remains on course, even though it bobs among several gritty subjects: black-market baby adoptions, adoptees seeking their natural parents, and horrid secrets of child abuse. Altogether this is a distinctive and intriguing launch.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Moves you right along, if you can ignor the details
The story was good and the setting was engaging. However, a liveaboard would either keep her boat ship shape and ready for heavy sailing (or risk having a cabin full of water or trashed ... maybe that's why she never bothers to clean up?) or she would keep it in the moorage. How many coffee mugs does she keep aboard a tight liveaboard that she can repeatedly scrounge up? The adoption plot is well reasoned and well done. However, her daughter is home for days and Kellie can't even be bothered to lift the phone to call and hear her voice. Then, heaven forbid she should be an hour early to here sister's home Christmas Eve to spend extra time with her child! No wonder the kid is looking for her birth mother. The psychiatric social worker goes from the term "labile" to the more 'layman friendly' term "loose boundaries." The later is used more often when trying to be vague than the former. Etc. etc. Like I said. If you are intimately involved with the things the auther has had lessons on, try to ignore the details. For a first book, this one is great. I look forward to reading more.

Good beginning, hope this series gets better
There's a lot to enjoy in this story, probably the least of which is the mystery. I liked the main character very much, and there are several passages on sailing that definitely pulled me in.

The adoption subplot is the most effective element of this story, where Kellie must deal with feelings of rejection when her adopted daughter decides to search for her birth mother. There are some very good sections on the daughter's need to find her identity, as well as on the tense dynamics among Kellie's extended family.

Unfortunately, the mystery is weak, the murderer fairly obvious. While Kellie has good motivation for pursuing an investigation as an amateur, and she meets some very interesting characters along the way, the red herrings were simply not strong enough to distract from the true solution.

There are elements of this story that will resonate with me for a long time. I'm looking forward to seeing the next Wilcox book, where hopefully the mystery will improve to match the quality of the subplot and the overall writing.

Light on the mystery, but still enjoyable
I enjoyed a lot of things about this story, particularly the adoption subplot. Kellie Montgomery is an attractive heroine, and the scenes with her and her adopted daughter concerning the daughter's decision to search for her birth mother were very moving.

The mystery itself is a bit light, but hopefully this will improve as the series progresses.