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After the 1900 Galveston hurricane, Dash Gallagher lost just about everything—including her husband. She settles down as Galveston’s first female attorney and tries to put her life back together while planning to adopt two orphaned girls. When the body of her client, the promiscuous Larisa Karparvo Dorfman, washes up on the beach, Gallagher figures that the rest of what remains of her life is about to be sucked down the drain, along with her reputation.
The Karparvo family hires private detective Leucippus Barker, who has an office across from Gallagher’s, to find a family heirloom in the form of a casket, which is purported to have a curse on it. The powerful—and possibly evil—family cares nothing about Larisa’s murder and will do anything to get the treasured box back where it belongs, even if it means that more must die.
Gallagher and Barker team up to figure out what’s going on with the Karparvo family and who might have wanted Larisa dead. And they have to do it all without tarnishing Gallagher’s reputation any more than it already is, or she may never be able to adopt the girls she so desperately wants to start a family with.
In this witty and delightful historical mystery, sparks fly between Gallagher and Barker as they work together to solve a crime. These two characters are so adorable that you can’t help but smile whenever they come together in a scene. And even though a romance between them is hinted at, you’ll never know whether it’s actually going to happen, which makes it even more suspenseful.
The time period—when a woman could not be seen alone with a man who’s not her husband without her reputation taking a major hit—presents many challenges for Dash Gallagher, and you’ll admire her stamina and determination to solve the murder, no matter what people might think of her in the end. This is the type of tough, strong, passionate woman that I like to find in fiction—and she does it all with a good heart.
Meanwhile, the mystery in Echoes of the Storm hints at something paranormal, making the whole plot intriguing and a puzzle to figure out. Throw in a bunch of wacky and eccentric secondary characters, and you have a recipe for a charming whodunit with an edge. I, for one, can’t wait for the next Galveston Hurricane Mystery to hit the market.
