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West County
Dr. Jeff Taylor, now unmarried, has settled in the small city of Appleton, an hour north of San Francisco. He works at a rural community health care clinic and is romantically involved with the clinic’s founder, the indefatigable Inez Vasquez.
Inez has a daughter, Bianca, who is nine years old. Jeff takes her on Saturday adventures to give Inez a break from her single-parenting duties. During an outing at a vast nature preserve, Bianca disappears while she and Jeff play Hide and Seek. When she reappears, Bianca announces she got lost but was guided back by someone she nicknames ‘Teacher Lady.’
Teacher Lady turns out to be a young homeless woman, Edwina Seeba. Jeff tries to help her. Edwina seems not quite of this world—she claims a friendship with legendary horticulturist Luther Burbank, who died in 1926.
Is Edwina simply crazy, or a heavenly creature come back to earth? When she is killed in a hit-and-run accident—while saving a child’s life—Jeff sets out to find the killer driver… and is shocked by the truth his pursuit reveals.
Inez has a daughter, Bianca, who is nine years old. Jeff takes her on Saturday adventures to give Inez a break from her single-parenting duties. During an outing at a vast nature preserve, Bianca disappears while she and Jeff play Hide and Seek. When she reappears, Bianca announces she got lost but was guided back by someone she nicknames ‘Teacher Lady.’
Teacher Lady turns out to be a young homeless woman, Edwina Seeba. Jeff tries to help her. Edwina seems not quite of this world—she claims a friendship with legendary horticulturist Luther Burbank, who died in 1926.
Is Edwina simply crazy, or a heavenly creature come back to earth? When she is killed in a hit-and-run accident—while saving a child’s life—Jeff sets out to find the killer driver… and is shocked by the truth his pursuit reveals.
246 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 9, 2025
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July 30, 2025
West County is a welcome addition to Scott Lipanovich’s Jeff Taylor mysteries. Despite getting involved in a smuggling operation and eventually in a murder, Taylor acts from motives that are for the good of the health care clinic where he is a doctor to the underserved. There’s a mystical quality to this book that evokes the wonder of the redwood forests. Lipanovich made me want to find a hollow in a redwood tree to turn into a retreat from the the chaos of events like the ones Taylor faces. Having a partner like Taylor’s Inez would be welcome.
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