Unsafe Keeping

Rating:
Summary: Runaway cars, arson, and rezoning
Review: Carol Cail's "Unsafe Keeping" begins when Maxey Burnell, co-owner of an independent newspaper, is nearly hit by a driverless van. Not to long after that, a similar incident results in the death of a pedestrian. At the same time, an arsonist has begun to set fires in the Boulder, Colorado, neighborhood Maxey calls home. Partially because of her role as a reporter but more because of a personal connection to the various incidents, Maxey investigates and finds that the clues seem to point to the struggle between preservationists and developers over a mansion that was once a prominent brothel.

While Maxey is trying to unwind the complicated but interwoven events, she tries also to figure out just where her ill-defined relationship with a homicide detective is going--if anywhere. "Unsafe Keeping" is certainly competently written, but it is too lean for much more. Though Cail works in a twist ending, the twist does not come off convincingly. The heroine-in-peril scenario that is rather hackneyed already makes an appearance here. While Cail at least avoids the problem of the heroine who rushes blindly into obviously dangerous situations, the convention seems too formulaic here, and the result is that the novel suffers. Certainly there are mysteries that are far less effective, but there are those that are far better, too.