Best Kept Secrets

Sandra Brown

Alexandra Gaither has returned to Purcell County in West Texas for the first time in 25 years, since she was a tiny baby and her mother was murdered. Now she is a prosecuting attorney for the state and vows to discover the truth. The man who was convicted and locked in a mental institution was not the murderer. She intends to discover who it was. It had to be one of three powerful men - Angus Minton, his son Junior, or Junior's best friend, Reede Lambert. Now Alex will walk into their territory and try to solve a 25-year-old murder.

Angus and his son run Minton Enterprises, a horse farm and racing business. Minton Enterprises has just received state sanction to build a race track in Purcell County which will bring the economy of the area back up. Reede Lambert is the sheriff and a local small business owner. His business would benefit from a horse racing track as well. Junior and Reede were Celina Graham's best friends in high school. After she married Alex's husband in El Paso and returned to Purcell County, they supported her when he died in Viet Nam and she was an 18-year-old widow with a small baby. She was stabbed to death in a horse stall on Angus' ranch when Alex was 2 months old. Alex and her grandmother moved away after the funeral.

Now Alex is unwelcome in a town that wants the racing commission to go through for Minton Enterprises. If any of the men are convicted of the old murder, the state could easily pull its sanction and the track wouldn't be built. But Alex has something to prove to her grandmother and herself - that she, although a tiny baby, wasn't responsible for her mother's death. She knows that "Gooney Bud" didn't have the sense, intelligence, or temprament to kill her mother. But Angus, Junior, and Reede all do.

Best Kept Secrets was written in the late 1980's - probably about the time Sandra Brown was switching from straight Harlequin-type romance novels to meatier romantic suspense. She doesn't have the new form down yet - this novel is predictable and uneven. I couldn't empathize with any of the characters. I was fairly sure early on who was the murderer, although Brown through in enough twists to keep that in a bit of doubt up to the end. Alex is a prosecuting attorney for the State of Texas and has seen some horrific sights. Yet she returns to her home town and becomes naive and fragile.

I like Sandra Brown's work. But this one isn't up to par. It's readable and can be an escape, but if you have a choice, pick up some of her stuff written after this, like Hello, Darkness.

Notice: Strong sexual content