Six Good Ones

What's amateur detective Vett Brayborn to do when her Aunt Mary's multi-millionaire boyfriend, Hollice, is strangled to death, and two weeks later, her aunt is murdered in her home, and all clues to the shocking murders lead to "six good blended adult family members"? She sucks it up, moves forward, probes into their lives, and finds a mystery pulling at all of them like gravity.

Vett, fifty-three years of age, has investigated hundreds of cases and solved them all during her illustrious career. She has learned all too well that predators with fangs and claws are not only in other people's families but also in hers. Issa Nichols, Aunt Mary's adopted daughter, is one of them and has been jailed for the murder of Hollice. Hollice is Issa's uncle and the man who raised her; she is considered one of the good ones. The police found Issa in Hollice's home, crying and cradling his dead body. But the stars are not aligning in her direction; the trail is not blazing toward her, and no grouping of facts points to her motive.

This does not deter Vett. She knows these are not good reasons to eliminate Issa as a suspect so early in the investigation. And she knows five other good ones have a compelling motive for the murders. They were jealous of the favoritism Mary and Hollice showered on Issa and the monthly monetary allowance they gave her.

Formidable Vett is determined to find the murderer among her blended family, even if it means turning them upside down and inside out. Fire and brimstone won't stop Vett from getting at the truth and taking down a family member.

Six Good Ones is a rich and epically tangled family narrative with a thirty-five-year-old secret at its root. The members of this blended family are diverse people who always seem to be embroiled in family conflicts, arguments, and emotional stress. If it were not for Vett and the four elderly aunts (sisters), who take control of these family eruptions and quite effectively extinguish them, the family would be in a perpetual state of disorder and confusion. This character-driven mystery is a chilling page-turner.