Covenant Hall-Kathryn R. Wall

Covenant Hall
Kathryn R. Wall
Minotaur, May 2009, $24.95
ISBN 9780312375355

In Hilton Head, South Carolina private investigator Bay Tanner struggles with two difficult inquiries that are personal. Heart wrenching she needs to find rather quickly one of the long lost sisters of Joline Eastman, whose child Kimmie needs a bone marrow transplant from a suitable match donor before she dies from leukemia. Her other case is not life-threatening, but matters a great deal to her. She reads her dying father’s will in which he mentions Julia Simpson, a half-sister of whom Bay she never knew she had.

Bay is stunned when Joline’s friends and family refuse to cooperate in spite of the clock ticking on Kimmie’s life. On the other hand she is not stunned that Julia’s guardian has doubts and cocnerns about whether she should agree to the half-sister meeting. As her dad retired judge Talbot Simpson nears death, Bay also must decide whether she will actually marry her fiancé police sergeant Red Tanner, the brother of her deceased husband.

Both of Tanner’s cases hit her gut with the fury of a Tsunami. Frantic from the start she personalizes saving Kimmie’s life especially when no one who might have a clue cooperates, and obsesses over meeting Julia. Ironically though fans have waited for her decision whether to marry Red, in COVENANT HALL that feels minor and intrusive when compared to Kimmie and to a lesser degree Julia. Fans will relish Bay’s latest cases as each gets personal.

Harriet Klausner