Twist Phelan is one of the authors who will be at Left Coast Crime next week. (Aside: squeee, I can't believe it's next week!!)In the second of the Pinnacle Peak mysteries, attorney Hannah Dain has joined the family law firm, Dain & Dain, in hopes of repairing the troubled relationship she has with her father and her sister (two of the firm's partners).
(Another aside: I read this thinking it was the first in the series, and now I'm disappointed, as I'm one of those anal people who must read series in order.) Her father Richard, has always been cold and distant, while her sister Shelby has always been openly hostile and antagonistic. Hannah isn't sure why they are this way, or why she needs to try to fix things, but she does.
She mitigates her distress with long bicycle rides in the desert outside the fictional Arizona town of Pinnacle Peak, which at the time of this story is in the middle of a searingly hot, dry summer.
When a seemingly routite IPO she is working on goes awry and she is blamed for it, she feels the need to find out what went wrong, and at the same time, exonerate herself.
Shelby is an appealing, if tortured protagonist, and the story is interesting and gripping. I look forward to reading more of the series. ( )