The Printed Page

Title: The End Game
Author/website: Gerrie Ferris Finger
Award winning book: Winner of the Malice Domestic Best Traditional Mystery Novel Competition
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date & page count: April ’10 & 310 pages

From page 182 of The End Game

“In her diaries, she writes of a secret lover. This man’s wife had died. I don’t think she was writing fiction, and I believe it’s important to find him.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Millicent Goddard having a secret lover is far-fetched, but if I had to guess it’d be Conrad Hugle.”
“Why?”
“The dead wife thing. Conrad moved to the mill right afterward. He said he wasn’t interested in remarrying, but I don’t think he became a monk, if you know what I mean. You know, Miss Goddard was a very pretty woman in her day.”
“I can’t see Conrad Hugle as Miss Goddard’s paramour.”
“Goddard would like that word – paramour,” he said. “You’re right, though, Conrad’s too sleazy to be anyone’s paramour. Besides they bickered constantly at NPU meetings.”
“I understand you bickered, too.”
He nodded. “Revitalization doesn’t suit everyone.”
Lake came back with two detectives. He said to Doonan, “Detectives Howard and Allen will go with you to check out the Inman Park Houses.”
Walking between the detectives, Doonan turned his head and looked at me like I’d charged five thousand dollars on his credit card account without him knowing.
I grabbed the borrowed raincoat the locked the door.

Moriah Dru’s weekend off with her lover, Lieutenant Richard Lake, is interrupted when Atlanta juvenile court judge Portia Devon hires Dru to find two sisters who’ve gone missing after their foster parents’ house burns down.

An ex-cop, Dru established Child Trace, Inc., after leaving the force. Judge Devon sees to it that Lake is assigned to head the police investigation, because Dru and Lake together have a habit of solving cases.

After questioning the neighbors, the couple realize the abduction of the girls is more than an ordinary kidnapping. Dru learns that in the past eight years two other foster children from the area have gone missing. The investigation turns up a snitch who tells Dru he’s heard that a secret sex organization, with members named after chess pieces, is bound for Costa Rica with two girls. The chase is on to stop the kidnappers before they escape the country.