Thirty-three year old Audrey Nealon runs Another Man’s Treasure, a rather unique business that handles estate sales.
As this compelling mystery opens, Audrey and her two squabbling assistants—Tyshaun, a young black male recently released from prison, and Jill, a helpful young woman with a “post-punk crew cut” and an eye for detail—are inventorying a recently deceased elderly lady’s belongings—ordinary items like old dishes, tools, utensils, and… a bag of illicit drugs!
With that stunning discovery—and the subsequent finding of a trunk of unusual jewelry in the woman’s attic—the mystery begins to unfold. What was the deceased doing with street drugs in her house? Why did she possess a trunk full of jewels—including a ring that had once belonged to Audrey’s mother, who died mysteriously when Audrey was just three years old?
Question follows question, clue follows clue, and the breathless reader can scarcely keep up with all the twists and turns in Audrey’s life once this story’s wheels start turning. Finding the ring piques Audrey’s interest in the past, and she becomes determined to understand what really happened the night her mother disappeared, even though her emotionally distant father—a retired college math professor—has recently suffered a stroke, rendering him even less communicative than ever.
Enter Cal Tremaine, a handsome lawyer and nephew of the deceased who also happens to be handling the campaign for Spencer Finneran, a charismatic politician running for election as Governor of the State of New Jersey; Cal seems almost as smitten with Audrey as he is with his boss. Romance, intrigue, drugs, violence, a brawny Irish cop, and a dog named Ethel—this clever mystery has it all.
Readers will fall in love with the relentless Audrey who is hell-bent on finding out why she was robbed not only of her mother but also of any hope she had for a “normal” childhood in a happy family. Truly, S.W. Hubbard has penned an absorbing treasure.
Reviewed by Kathryn E. Livingston for IndieReader