Sanctuary Hill

by Kathryn R. Wall

Book Overview

A summer storm has Bay Tanner, sometime private investigator, cooped up with her ailing father at his antebellum mansion near Hilton Head. Desperate for a distraction, Bay recovers a cooler bobbing along on the incoming tide, never imagining the misery she will unleash when she discovers what's inside.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312362099
• ISBN13: 9780312362096
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

KUDOS!!! Bay Tanner series leaves reader wanting MORE and MORE!

For the readers of the low country sleuth Bay Tanner, this will NOT be a disappointment! Continuing her saga of suspense, surprise and a little romance, she continues the involvements of Hilton Head, Presqu'isle and Gullah characters with surprises along the way. This one is the BEST yet, leaving a desire for the immediate sequel to one of the South's leading mystery women!

Best Bay Tanner Mystery To Date

I have read all of Kathryn Wall's Bay Tanner mysteries and I think this one may be the best -- by a hair. As usual, Wall evokes the hot summer setting of the low country so completely that I experience strong cravings for sweet tea and feel overheated just reading the book. In this novel, Wall takes on racism in the Low Country, in a complex and compelling way that challenges the reader to think in new ways about old problems that die hard. This context offers Wall the opportunity to develop some likeable characters even more completely, including Lavinia Smalls, the judge's care taker, as well as Eric, Bay's partner in her detective agency. I missed Bay's more compelling romantic interests of the past, although things heating up with her brother-in-law Red evoked shock, horror, and perverse fascination. The night scenes at the compound are downright creepy -- in a good way. I read this book in two days, because I could not put it down. I loved it! In sum, I found this mystery the most realistic and compelling this far in an absolutely fascinating series. I hope there will be many more Bay Tanner mysteries to come. Are you listening, Ms. Wall? Or should I say Ms. Kathryn?

strong entertaining regional mystery

An unexpected storm socks the South Carolina Lowcountry coast stranding private investigator Bay Tanner at the home of her ailing father. Stepping outside the luxurious antebellum mansion, Bay grabs a floating cooler. When she opens it expecting inside food or drink, she is stunned to find the corpse of a newborn. She informs Sheriff's sergeant Redmond "Red" Tanner, who also happens to be the brother of Bay's deceased husband; her in-law tells her not to investigate as he knows how her curiosity keeps the cat in trouble. She ignores his warning rant because she believes the key to identifying the mother and perhaps the killer is the strange charm the victim had around her neck. At about the same time realtor Dumars hires Bay to look for his missing wife. When the spouse is found dead her client is the prime suspect. Though she thinks he is innocent, she detests what she believes is his disrespect for the dead as he sleeps with another woman while his wife lies in the morgue. She considers dropping him as a client rationalizing that her contractual consideration was achieved when the corpse was found. The realistic portrayals of the characters especially Bay and Red make for a strong entertaining regional mystery. Bay has several dilemmas to consider making her seem human as she suddenly has two men wanting her and a moral quandary re Dumars. Fans of the series will appreciate this superb whodunit that brings Beaufort County alive through a fully developed cast involved in two homicides. Harriet Klausner