Broken Vows Mystery 02-For Richer, for Danger

The first book in the series, "For Better, For Murder", is a finalist for the 2009 Agatha Award for Best First Novel! Jolene Parker and her police-deputy husband Ray have found new love in their life together. They're foster parents for Noelle, an adorable baby whose fugitive birth parents hightailed it out of their touristy Finger Lakes-area town. Jolene and Ray want to make their parenthood official, but the adoption hits a mysterious roadblock when the given name of Noelle's mother traces back to a dead girl. As Jolene races to find the true identity of the secretive birth mother, she discovers an unsolved murder ...and learns that her family may be in extreme danger.From Publishers WeeklyIn Agatha-finalist Bork's winning second Broken Vows mystery set in New York's Finger Lakes region (after 2009's For Better, for Murder), Jolene Parker and her police deputy husband, Ray, have survived near divorce, but may lose the infant daughter they hope to adopt, Noelle, because the bank-robbing fugitive birth mother, who called herself Abigail Bryce, was using a 17-year-old dead girl's identity, rendering all the adoption paperwork worthless. Jolene eventually catches up with the false Abigail in a parking lot, where she's holding a broken beer bottle over her dying boyfriend, who's bleeding from a neck wound. Meanwhile, Jolene must strive to keep her floundering sports car boutique and repair business afloat. When a millionaire summer resident promises a substantial finder's fee for tracking down a specific car for his wife's grandfather, the need for cash outweighs the weirdness of knowing the car will be used as the grandfather's coffin. The various plot lines wind neatly to a bittersweet conclusion. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIn this second Broken Vows mystery set in the Finger Lakes area of New York, sports-car-boutique owner Jolene Parker and her deputy-sheriff husband, Ray, have not only reconciled but they’re in the process of finalizing the adoption of their foster daughter, Noelle. Then a routine check on the birth-mother’s name, Abigail Bryce, traces to a dead girl. When Jolene tries to track down information about the real Abigail, she witnesses the murder of Noelle’s birth father, and it looks as though the girl calling herself Abigail is the killer. As Jolene continues to investigate, she also faces Ray’s possible infidelity with a gorgeous attorney; financial trouble with her business; and the possible loss of Noelle, who has become Jolene’s symbol of hope for her marriage. Bork combines the mystery with domestic situations, romance, and sports-car lore in a book that comes across as less a cozy and more a family drama. --Kat Kan