A hard, four-hour drive north of San Francisco leads to sparsely populated Soledad County, a combination of spectacular seashore, inland forests, and small towns steeped in gold-mining history. One of those towns is Cyanide Wells, now an artsy community, whose name comes from the miners' use of cyanide to refine ore and the time the area's water supply was tragically poisoned.
To Matthew Lindstrom, that sinister legacy is ironically appropriate for the place he finally expects to find his ex-wife, Gwen. Fourteen years earlier, her baffling disappearance branded him a murderer and destroyed his reputation and career as a photographer. Suddenly, after all this time, an anonymous phone caller tells him that Gwen is alive - and well aware of what she has done. Matt comes to Cyanide Wells looking for answers...and revenge.
Here, where the surrounding thick forest conceals twisted paths and old sins, Matt works to uncover the details of Gwen's new life. But before he can confront her, his ex vanishes once more. With his future again threatened by suspicion, Matt must join forces with Carly McGuire - a local woman with secrets of her own - and begin a hunt through Soledad's untamed landscape and an interior geography of betrayal and darkness. There perhaps lies the truth about past crimes and Gwen's fate...as well as Matt's own.
A woman named Gwen Lindstrom disappears from her marriage and life, leaving a faked scene suggesting foul play that puts her blameless husband, Matt, under suspicion of murder. Fourteen years later, Matt learns that Gwen, now Ardis, is living in Cyanide Wells, California, apparently a mother and apparently in a stable same-sex relationship. But guess what--all is not as it seems this time either. The female voices are read by Sandra Burr and the male ones by J. Charles. This is only fitfully successful, but whether because the actors aren't up to it or because the dialogue is unreadable is hard to tell. A mildly entertaining exercise, but never very believable, though the production is slick. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
About the Creator
MARCIA MULLER has written many novels and short stories. Her novel Wolf in the Shadows won the Anthony Boucher Award. The recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award - their highest accolade - she lives in northern California with her husband, mystery writer Bill Pronzini.
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