Past Imperfect

In Past Imperfect, Casey "had exactly seven days to untangle the web of lies that was Angie Drummond's life" if she wants to make it home for Christmas. Casey was a former journalist turned manager of electronics search operations for a private investigation firm, who now found herself out of job because she began looking into an inquiry for a client. The client was a friend who happened to die five hours after hiring the firm. The death was deemed an accident, just like Angie’s father's freak accident just two weeks earlier. Anyway, something did not feel right and from the little information she gathered, despite what her boss thought, which was he was not getting a check from a corpse for the research, or what the cops thought, the two deaths were just too much of a coincidence; so she set out to finish the job her friend asked her to do. After all, this mystery led to the infamous Mason family in Boston.

Her trip to Boston started out with the loss of her luggage and the forecast of the nor'easter, a bad snowstorm blowing in from the Northeast. Just her luck, she looses her hotel room key, runs into her ex, Jack, a federal prosecutor, and is stranded in Boston. On top of that, her mother's instilled paranoia has her thinking she is being followed, but that is crazy. Right? Maybe not! Things start to happen the more Casey uncovers about Angie’s family. This makes Casey believe that some accidents are not accidents, and then Jack starts to think maybe Casey's suspicions were right all along. Has Casey's curiosity and the urge to tie up loose ends finally gotten her into a mess she cannot get out of? If someone did kill her friend Angie and her father to keep Angie from delving into the family past, what is to stop them from coming after Casey? What is one more dead body to keep the secret?

Ms. Peterson immediately hooks the reader in the beginning with Casey's instilled paranoid idiosyncrasies she has reluctantly inherited from her mother. Casey is that patron soul whose logical mind warns her that the odds are already stacked against her and every possible bad omen has warned her against proceeding, yet she has a calling to set things right for friend; it is a feeling the reader can empathize with on a moralistic level. Nora Peterson has written a truly original mystery thriller with thought provoking plot twists. Immediately from the beginning they were plausible red herrings planted throughout the unraveling of the mystery that lead both Casey and the reader on tangents in the wrong directions, yet when the true path is revealed the motivation and logic are there to support the spectacular climax.

The intensity of violence and clashes Casey encounters is consistent with what one might encounter in any city like Boston when dealing with the types of secondary characters, private eyes, street criminals, and desolate souls with which Casey found herself. The secondary characters, such as Jack, were extremely helpful in supporting Casey's journalist’s persona and getting her access to the Mason family and police files. In contrast, Aunt Mary was very useful in getting the background information on the family. The subplot, the romantic component between Jack and Casey, served as a diversionary element, as well as hope that somehow working together in this case might bring Casey back from the abyss in which she seemed to have gone when she swore off men. As the reader hopes Casey survives the case long enough to solve Angie's life secrets, the reader also hopes Casey comes out of this ordeal a stronger woman.

Kudos to Nora Peterson and her first mystery thriller! The reviewer hopes she continues to write more novels like Past Imperfect and would love to read another book starring her sleuth Casey. Ms. Peterson has definitely acquired a new fan!

August 2006