SOMETHING TO HIDE

by Patricia Robinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 22, 1990

Actress and playwright Robinson tries her hand at fiction in this ingenuous little romantic suspense, set in pre-Hugo Charleston. Heroine Sage Eliot, 26, is already spinster material, having devoted her first-blush years to caring for her recently deceased grandmother. She doesn't mind that her pretty older sister, Elise, says she's getting ""downright odd."" No, she'd rather spend her clays poring over diaries of two 19th-century relatives, supporting herself by renting out apartment space in her faded old Charleston mansion. But when she starts hearing strange noises at night, finds a dead bat under her pillow, and discovers the body of one of her tenants (who's been mysteriously murdered), she starts seriously reassessing her situation. Robinson musters up an assortment of possible perpetrators--including Roper Chalfont, the occupant of her carriage house who's rumored to have served time for drug smuggling; Sage's own brother-in-law; and handsome David Raeburn, a rich but clearly troubled newcomer to the Charleston scene. The author also paints a possible motive--hidden treasure in the house, suggested by the diaries. Then one dark night, while searching for a lost kitty, Sage happens upon a valuable copy of Audubon prints, a discovery that flushes out the true murderers--happily not Roper Chalfont, who happily isn't a smuggler, and happily loves Sage as much as she's come to love him. Briefly amusing for Charleston aficionados perhaps, but as suspense fiction goes, a poor-man's Barbara Michaels.

Pub Date: April 22, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION