Marin County is famous for its affluent pleasures and the beauty of its beaches, mountains and redwood forests. In Time and Trouble, a teen-aged runaway, a yellow hearse, an insurance scam, a heart-shaped talisman, a baby’s skeleton in a meadow, and something ugly and odd going on in a Sausalito houseboat all converge there to provide the first—and nearly last—case for Billie August, the new hire of seasoned P.I. Emma Howe.
Billie, a single parent with no practical job skills, desperately needs the job, and Emma, whose personality has caused most of her employees to head for the hills, hires the sure-to-fail inexperienced young woman out of her own desperation. An unlikely, antagonistic pair, both find out that things are seldom as they seem, and appearances—in and out of crime and investigation—can be dangerously deceiving.
This one kept me guessing… although it was a bit difficult to follow. Emma Howe was a crusty middle aged experienced PI. Billie was a smart 30 something single mother trying to keep her head above water. She needed a job and the PI hours fit her life. She’d learn on the job…. Or at least she thought so. Her first job turned out to be a doozy!! An 18 year old girl. Penny, goes missing. Her mother, a cripple in a wheelchair wants to find her. She believes her daughter has gotten caught up in some crazy cult. Her step-father is overbearing and demanding. As the mother asks Emma for help Emma realized the mother was a scam artist they were trying to get evidence on. She wasn’t really handicapped! --- there are many twists and turns before things get straightened out.
I wasn't crazy about the author's writing style from the start, but the story seemed promising. However, it seemed to be a closed and shut missing persons case, nothing more. Until 3/4's of the way through the book, it becomes a murder mystery. I wish that turn of events came sooner because it became more exciting. In the last 3 chapters, there was a chase and then a fight in the last 5 pages. If all of those had happened sooner, I would have liked the book better. As they were, it seemed a little rushed and the resolution wrapped everything up in a page.
Awesome cover - I just wish the story followed suit.
A recent branching out for Roberts, this is the beginning of a series about Emma Howe, who’s run a detective agency for some time, and Billie August, her new assistant with no experience but plenty of enthusiasm. I didn’t find it nearly as good as the Amanda Pepper stories: a couple of really depressing characters, a distracting change in POV with every change of chapter, and a villain I spotted in the first quarter of the book.
I read all the Amanda Pepper mysteries by Gillian Roberts so I thought I'd try one of the other series. It was really good and well-written, a gripping mystery of bodies found in a field, a missing teen, and the detectives working on the cases.
I really wanted to love this book but I just sort of liked it through to the end. Don't plan to read anymore in the series. By the way, I believe this is book one, not book two unless there is a prequel.