Best Friends

Rating:
Summary: Small Town Murder, Big City Intrigue
Review: Kathy Marshall is enjoying her settled life style as the owner of a successful health food business when she receives a frantic phone call from her daughter Marcie reporting that her husband Frank has been killed and she is the prime suspect. Lee Ramsey, long lost acquaintance from Kathy's teenage years, is back in town trying to rebuild her life as a newly minted lawyer. Lee, who doesn't realize that Marcie is the daughter of her old friend, Kathy, intends to build her reputation by prosecuting Marcie during her murder trial.

Kathy hires Scott Lazarus to defend Marcie. Scott, a successful big town lawyer who returned to the small town of Madison in upstate New York for the slower pace of life, is sincere and concerned about Marcie and believes in her innocence. He becomes a staunch ally of their family against the ugly allegations and threats from the community, and Kathy feels herself drawn to him and becoming dependent on him.

In an effort to make the main plot more interesting, the author also develops several sub-plots including the marriages of Kathy's best friends from childhood, Angie and her husband Joe, who are still happily married, and Ellen and Phil, whose marriage is falling apart. Kathy's unhappy marriage to Glenn ended years ago, and she remains bitter towards him. Glenn is more concerned about the impact of the murder trial on his career than he is about Marcie. All the subplots and the many characters that are paraded through the book but never well developed make it difficult to keep track of the main plot.

The search for Frank's killer gets ridiculously complicated with allegations that a local secretive militia group is involved, as well as money launderers and drug lords from Miami. It's all rather preposterous and improbable in this small, quiet town. By the end of the novel, I was relieved that the killer was found and all the loose ends were tied up.