Thursday, September 6, 2018

Under a Mulberry Moon

Psychologist Ben Pecos transfers to St. Augustine, Florida from his home in New Mexico to work at an Indian Health Service facility. He is hardly unpacked when he encounters a crisis in one of the schools.

An eight-year brought a gun to school, pointed it at the forehead of his teacher, and pulled the trigger. Fortunately there was no bullet in the chamber and teacher Maureen Beltzer was unharmed, physically. Ben works with both the boy and Mo to help them through this traumatic event.

The boy insists a clown gave him the gun and told him to shoot Ms. Beltzer, but he cannot identify the person except to say it sounded like a woman. The school suspends her for injuring the student because no one actually witnessed his actions and a teacher's aide claims Mo overreacted. Mo is traumatized and refuses to leave her house for weeks.

When her sister finagles a job for Mo at the prestigious Whitney Labs in the botanical gardens, she
slowly comes out of hiding. Surrounded by exotic orchids, Mo is in her element and begins to relax from the stress. When the boy who threatened her is kidnapped, her fears grow. Why and who would kidnap Toby?

Quietly working with the orchids, the handsome director of the Labs seems to have some interest in Mo. She knows this is not a good idea and tries to discourage his attentions.

When Mo witnesses some priceless orchids being stolen and is shot at by the perpetrators, Mo worries that some of the staff might be involved. With the police investigating, they discover the security at the lab isn't very thorough and there are no security cameras working. Hundreds of thousands of orchids were stolen.

Planning for an huge fundraising event, Mo and Dr. Mitchell load the van with thousands of dollars of orchids to take to the event. At the end of the evening an explosion takes place in the van and Dr, Geoffrey Mitchell and two others die in the explosion.

The plot thickens as they say.  An excellent mystery which leaves the reader guessing until the end.

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