Search the Shadows remains one of my better favorites among my Barbara Michaels collection, and is one I like to re-read periodically.
Young Haskell Maloney is quite shocked to discover that she carries the genes for a rare disease called Tay-Sachs, which she could not possibly have gotten unless she'd inherited it from both parents--which means that one of her parents isn't who she thought. Her quest to find out the true identity of her father, and by extension what caused her mother's death, leads her to Chicago on her mother's trail. Soon she's tracking down her mother's old classmates from college, a couple of whom are professors now in their own right, and she scores herself a job working on the private artifact collection of the very man who might well be her own grandfather. Problem is, it also puts her square in the line of fire of someone who'd just as soon keep the secret of Haskell's parentage secret, and who doesn't scruple to attack Haskell herself.
I give Barbara Michaels props for trying to avoid the usual cliches in describing her heros and/or heroines in this book; this time around it worked a bit against her as I wound up wondering exactly what our heroine sees in a gentleman most frequently described in terms of how hairy he is. (Fortunately, he's also a strong character in general, and what she sees becomes evident later.)
We do of course have an open question as to which man our heroine will choose, but the resolution to this felt a little hurried and after-the-fact to me, as if Michaels was done telling the main story and then suddenly thought "OH NO, right, I've got to resolve the romance!" Still though, fun read. Three stars.
Young Haskell Maloney is quite shocked to discover that she carries the genes for a rare disease called Tay-Sachs, which she could not possibly have gotten unless she'd inherited it from both parents--which means that one of her parents isn't who she thought. Her quest to find out the true identity of her father, and by extension what caused her mother's death, leads her to Chicago on her mother's trail. Soon she's tracking down her mother's old classmates from college, a couple of whom are professors now in their own right, and she scores herself a job working on the private artifact collection of the very man who might well be her own grandfather. Problem is, it also puts her square in the line of fire of someone who'd just as soon keep the secret of Haskell's parentage secret, and who doesn't scruple to attack Haskell herself.
I give Barbara Michaels props for trying to avoid the usual cliches in describing her heros and/or heroines in this book; this time around it worked a bit against her as I wound up wondering exactly what our heroine sees in a gentleman most frequently described in terms of how hairy he is. (Fortunately, he's also a strong character in general, and what she sees becomes evident later.)
We do of course have an open question as to which man our heroine will choose, but the resolution to this felt a little hurried and after-the-fact to me, as if Michaels was done telling the main story and then suddenly thought "OH NO, right, I've got to resolve the romance!" Still though, fun read. Three stars.
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