The Legacy
A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the Arthur Ellis Award–winning Grand Master of Crime Writers comes the next installment in the Joanne Kilbourn series
When Joanne Shreve’s former student, Val Masluk, writes the biography of acclaimed novelist, Steven Brooks, Val once again becomes part of Joanne’s life. The biography is already raising troubling questions about Brooks’s past, and the wedding of Brooks’s daughter, Joanne’s son, is scheduled the day before the biography is published.
Both Joanne and her former student are haunted by memories of the seminar that led to the deaths of two people and the murder conviction of a third. The publication of the Brooks biography poses a threat not only to the future of the man and woman about to be married, but also to the futures of those who love them. Joanne is certain that the threat is rooted in either her past or in that of Steven Brooks. The collateral damage caused by exposing that link will bring pain to both families, but life has taught Joanne that the only thing worse than knowing is not knowing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bowen's slow-moving latest adventure for retired Canadian professor Joanne Shreve, née Kilbourn (following 2022's What's Past Is Prologue) threatens to get overwhelmed by lukewarm family drama. More than 10 years ago, Joanne co-taught a journalism seminar with rising academic star Tom Kelsoe, who was later found guilty of double murder. Joanne's long-simmering guilt over her failure to prevent Kelsoe's crimes resurfaces when she's contacted by Val Masluk, a student from that seminar, who's just finished writing two books: a roman à clef of the Kelsoe case and a biography of bestselling novelist Steven Brooks, whose daughter is engaged to Joanne's son. Then a journalist contacts Joanne about an anonymous email he's received that seems intended to reignite rumors that Brooks's work is not his own. While she's investigating those claims, Joanne finds herself with a fresh homicide to solve—and questions about the killing's potential origins in the Kelsoe case. Bowen lays out her sprawling cast of characters in a four-page guide before the start of the novel, setting the tone for her unnecessarily byzantine plotting, too much of which focuses on the impending wedding between Joanna's son and Brooks's daughter. Fans may appreciate the space dedicated to characters' personal lives, but as a mystery, this flounders.
