Troubled Waters

Although I have read -- and enjoyed -- virtually every book in every series by the most famous female mystery writers, Carolyn Wheat unequivocally remains my favorite. This series is about a Legal Aid attorney named Cass Jameson. As such, it introduces fascinating glimpses into seldom-seen areas of the legal system -- along with providing excellent mysteries. This is one series I buy in hardcover as soon as each book is published.The books are all very well-written, fast-moving, and entertaining. I cannot sufficiently recommend them. IMHO, this is the best mystery series available.

I eagerly await each of Carolyn Wheat's mysteries. Troubled Waters is an excellent, well plotted mystery. The character development is strong and the story line demands the reader's full attention.I have read each of her previous Cass Jameson mysteries and thoroughly enjoyed each of them. This one reaches new heights of excellence with its amazingly plotted and executed story line.My one suggestion to the author is that she utilize a medical advisor to check medical procedures and equipment. One can not speak while on a respirator and when visiting a patient in ICU with a head injury there would be no need to gown. Other than those minor errors, I thought this book was her best yet. I eagerly await the next offering in this wonderful series.

"Troubled Waters" is one of the the best mysteries I've read this year. Wheat's compelling narrative shifts in time between the late '60s, early '80s and mid-'90s, charting the lives of a disparate group of idealistic radicals from youth to adulthood, and makes canny use of their collective 30-odd-year-old emotional baggage. At first, the time shifts drove impatient me crazy, but it wasn't long before I was thumbing back every few chapters for clues. Believe me, it doesn't help! Wheat's five previous books in the Cass Jameson series foreshadow so many events here, I sense that this book has been percolating in her head all along. Many mystery writers don't bother to give their characters a past that is relevant in future plots. (I haven't read her books in chronological order, which perhaps frees me from reader expectations.) I was blown away by its climactic ending, and I'm not easily fooled! (Certain people refuse to sit next to me in movies!) Kudos to Carolyn Wheat for her best writing yet! I'm chomping at the bit for her next book but, unfortunately for us readers, her books are published years apart. P.S. I advise beginning this book in the morning. I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night to finish the last chapters.

In 1969, Cass Jameson, her brother Ron (at his sister's urgings), Jan Gebhardt, and other idealists helped organize migrant farm workers into unions. By joining his sibling and others in their protests, Ron lost his conscientious objector draft status. Ron was drafted and sent to Nam where he returned home as a quadriplegic. In 1982, Ron was driving his specially built van with Jan and several illegal aliens as part of the sanctuary movement. However, this trip went sour and a federal law enforcement agent is killed. Jan fled to the underground and the charges against Ron were held in abeyance, pending Jan's arrest. ...... In 1997, Jan decides to surrender to FBI officials in Kansas City which, in turn, reactivate Ron's charges. Both are to face a murder trail in Toledo. Cass leaves Brooklyn, to journey home to represent her sibling at the trial. To do so, Cass knows that she must confront her own guilt feelings about her sibling's physical condition and her fear that she will fail him again. She also must look back at her own role and motives as a soldier in President Johnson's war on poverty in the sixties, while watching her personal life become part of the media fascination with the trial. ....... TROUBLED WATER is a great legal thriller that provides a reader with a solid look at the idealistic sixties, especially the motives of the radical participants and the uglier aspects of the eighties sanctuary movement. Though the insight to much of Cass's motives appear in this novel, what truly turns this into a fabulous book is the insight into the primary characters (even the star in her fifth brilliant appearance gets the full treatment) during three different decades. This reviewer strongly recommend this novel and the previous Jameson tales to fans of legal thrillers and anyone who was there during the sixties. ......Harriet Klausner