Misfortune by Nancy Geary
Warner - July 2001
ISBN: 044652753X - Hardcover
Suspense/ Amateur Sleuth explicit material

Reviewed by Barbara Buhrer, MyShelf.com
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When Clio Pratt's body is found in the ladies room of the Fair Lawn Country Club, it is assumed she died of a heart attack.

This assumption proved false when the autopsy revealed she died of heart failure induced by lethal interaction of diet pills and medication prescribed for hypochondria...in other words she was murdered. The circumstances are such that the murderer had to be someone at the exclusive Southampton club.

There is no lack of those who would be happy to see Clio dead. Among them: Henry Lewis, black heart surgeon whose application for membership to the club she blackballed, Beverly Winters, a widow about whom she spread stories that she caused her husband's suicide; Miles Adler, her husband's partner, whose position in the company she undercut; and Blair Devlin, her step-daughter, whose request for money to keep her art gallery from failing she refused.

Frances Pratt, Clio's other stepdaughter, an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, is excluded from the investigation into Clio's murder, but undertakes her own to find the murderer for her father who is incapacitated by a stroke.

Her investigation takes her to the elite of Southampton and she finds that the glamour, wealth and etiquette of that society only thinly disguises tormented, troubled and prejudiced people. Her search brings closure closer to home than she realized.

This is a fast read with a well-plotted story which has an unexpected ending. The characters are well developed. The portrayal of Southampton society is depicted in brutal detail