Half Moon Bay
A Novel
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3.9 • 470 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Deputy Coroner Clay Edison discovers that buried secrets can be deadly in this riveting thriller from a father-son team of bestselling authors who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).
An ID Book Club Selection
Clay Edison has his hands full. He’s got a new baby who won't sleep. He’s working the graveyard shift. And he’s trying, for once, to mind his own business. Then comes the first call. Workers demolishing a local park have made a haunting discovery: the decades-old skeleton of a child. But whose? And how did it get there?
No sooner has Clay begun to investigate than he receives a second call—this one from a local businessman, wondering if the body could belong to his sister. She went missing fifty years ago, the man says. Or at least I think she did. It’s a little complicated.
And things only get stranger from there. Clay’s relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. And it can be murderous.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In bestseller Kellerman and son Jesse's middling third mystery featuring deputy coroner Clay Edison (after 2018's A Measure of Darkness), Edison is called in after a construction project in a Berkeley, Calif., park unearths the remains of an infant. The location of the find leads activists opposing the construction to suggest that the bones belong to a Native American child and that the development be halted until the site is checked for other remains. Meanwhile, wealthy software designer Peter Franchette wants Edison to determine whether the skeleton is that of his missing sister, about whom he knows almost nothing, not even her name. Though Edison is able to rule out that possibility after concluding that the bones are male, he somewhat implausibly pursues evidence to see if he can give Franchette any answers. Ponderous prose is a minus ("I engraved their image in my mind, an icon to clutch close as I left them behind and descended to the realm of the dead"). The plotline and characters aren't indicative of either author's best work.
Customer Reviews
Half Moon Bay
Interesting at times, but tedious as well. Some excellent writing mixed with too much preaching. Disappointed by the book overall. Excellent portrayal of SF Bay and it’s denizens but they’re lost in a convoluted plot.
Disappointing
The book has very little to do with the bones found in the park. The secondary story pretty much takes over the book. There are very bumpy transitions between the two. The main character was a patrol officer, who became a coroner, who became an on and off duty PI for the second storyline. I think I’ll stick to Milo and Alex.
Half moon
Really really bad