Deputy Coroner Clay Edison discovers that buried secrets can be deadly in this riveting thriller from a father-son team of bestselling authors who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).An ID Book Club Selection Clay Edison has his hands full. He’s got a new baby who won’t sleep. He’s working the graveyard shift. And he’s trying, for once, to mind his own business. Then comes the … his own business. Then comes the first call. Workers demolishing a local park have made a haunting discovery: the decades-old skeleton of a child. But whose? And how did it get there?
No sooner has Clay begun to investigate than he receives a second call—this one from a local businessman, wondering if the body could belong to his sister. She went missing fifty years ago, the man says. Or at least I think she did. It’s a little complicated.
And things only get stranger from there. Clay’s relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. And it can be murderous.
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“Half Moon Bay” is a first person narrative by Clay Edison. He lives in Berkeley and works in the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau. He shares his thoughts, concerns, and insecurities with readers. He talks about the world around him and surviving bedlam in the midst of normality. Edison and his wife Amy balance the demands of their jobs with the demands of their baby, Charlotte. The narrative has three distinct styles; Edison is exacting and professional when working, friendly and casual with friends, and panicked and nervous about being a dad. He comments about the world, and he talks to himself a lot.
Edison is called to a construction site on the Berkeley campus when the bones of a child are unearthed. Berkley is always in the midst of one protest or another, and this intensifies the demonstrations. Events unfold in a linear progression with a few flashbacks to fill in details. Edison is steady, systematic, and detailed as he searches for answers, meanwhile, projects halt, protests grow, and people hide secrets. The narrative is strengthened by vivid and exquisite descriptions of everything and everybody.
“The sun sent up a death knell flare. Pale strip of hard-baked dirt ran toward the encroaching dusk.”
“Half Moon Bay” is the location where all the pieces start to fall into place. Edison always seems to be on the edge of chaos; however, this book is not anxiety inducing or traumatizing even though bad things happen. It is easy to follow Edison as he tries to do the best he can with wife, baby, and complex job. “Half Moon Bay” is book three in the series, but it is not necessary to have read the previous books to enjoy this one. I received a copy of “Half Moon Bay” from Jonathan Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books.
Deputy Coroner Clay Edison is doing double duty in this new thriller. He has a new baby in the house and he’s working the night shift.
He’s called in to take a look when decades-old bones are found buried in a local park. And it’s the body of a child. Then he receives a call from a local businessman wondering if the bones belong to his sister who disappeared 50 years ago. Or so he thinks.
BOOK BLURB: Clay’s relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. And it can be murderous.
I have long read Kellerman’s books, so I was surprised that this one was not the least bit interesting. It’s very slow in some spots, and there are many, varied story lines and characters … too many to get a good hold of. The plot was convoluted and hard to follow. While not happy with this one, I will still take a chance on the next book. Hopefully this one was an anomaly.
Many thanks to the authors / Random House Publishing – Ballantine / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction mystery. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
HALF MOON BAY by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman is the third book in the Clay Edison mystery series. I am a fan of the Alex Delaware series and I expected this to be just as good. Deputy Coroner Clay Edison is working the graveyard shift and has a new baby that doesn’t sleep. He gets the call when workers demolishing a stage in a park find a child’s skeleton. Who is it? How old is it? A local businessman thinks it could be his sister who went missing fifty years ago.
The story line was interesting and had great potential. I thought Clay was a compelling character that I could root for. He had clear goals as well as flaws and virtues and his motivations seemed believable. However, the story seemed to plod along during the middle part of the book. It was not always as engaging as I wanted it to be. The ending had a couple of plot twists that seemed believable, but unexpected. Themes include parenting, racism, kidnapping, protests, arson, and much more.
Overall, this was a slow-burner with two parallel investigations. However, with such an engaging main character, I plan to read more of the series.
Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Books, Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman for a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
368 pages
5 stars
Clay Edison and his wife Amy now have an infant daughter named Charlotte. They are struggling with being exhausted all of the time.
Clay gets a call about a possible body at a construction site. It is a skeleton. It is a baby, an infant. At the same time, protestors are causing trouble at the work site.
Clay is contacted by a Peter Franchette who says the infant might be his sister. Well, he’s not exactly sure…This sets Clay on the trail of the Franchette family and he learns much about Bev, Peter’s mother and the volatile Gene her husband. Clay, of course, gets sucked into investigating not only the identity of the baby, but Peter’s claims.
The book takes off in two different directions. The baby is a boy and Peter is looking for his sister. Clay pursues these two lines of inquiry. The baby’s DNA comes back and a surprise is in store, not only for Clay, but also for the father of the child. Now, he needs to find a relative who might be willing to pay funeral costs for the baby.
Clay’s investigation into Peter’s story takes him to many places. He meets with many people before he is able to put together the clues. The answer surprised this reader. I was sure that the story would have turned out differently.
Meanwhile the protestors are getting more rowdy and causing damage to construction equipment and to the very park they are supposed to be “protecting.”
Clay, Amy and baby Charlotte have a brush with danger.
This is a very well written and plotted novel. I enjoyed it immensely. The two parallel investigations caught my interest quickly, although at times I became slightly confused. The book reads very quickly. I devoured it in one sitting. It made perfect logical sense, one event follows another apace. I liked Clay and Amy and Charlotte was a gem. It made me harken back to my son when he was that age. And I loved the altered “Stop” signs.
I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine/Ballantine Books for forwarding to me a copy of this most excellent book for me to read, enjoy and review.
Lost Souls by Jonathan Kellerman and Jessie Kellerman is a contemporary crime novel that had me guessing from the start. It is the third book in the Clay Edison series but can be read as a stand-alone.
Following a discovery of small bones, the hunt is on to find the identity and the truth. The reader joins the characters in the search for two babies of the 1960’s. The cases are similar and run parallel. The one search is for the child, the other for the parents.
Long buried secrets need to rise to the surface.
Families are complicated affairs – we view both discord from within and also harmony.
The plotline was complex and well thought out and executed, with realistic characters eliciting a variety of emotional responses.
Lost Souls would make a marvellous movie. I enjoyed the book and was entertained whilst trying to solve the crimes.
I received a free copy via Net Galley. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.
(JONATHAN AND JESSE KELLERMAN)
At a controversial development on the UC Berkeley grounds, the skeletal remains of a baby are found. Clay Edison is on the nightshift as a deputy coroner and has to determine whose bones these are. They’re not native but fairly ‘recent’, from the early seventies and belong to a male infant between 6 and 18 months. By law, Clay has the duty to inform the family of the deceased but first, he has to find out who the child is. The UC detective designed to the case is lazy and none too bright and of very little help.
Clay receives a strange phone call from Peter Franchette who believes the bones might belong to his missing sister. He has an old photo from his mother with a baby girl about whom his parents never spoke. Clay decides to help the man in his free time. So first of, all they must find out if there ever was an older sister before they can start to, determine what could have happened to her.
That both cases are about babies is close to home for Clay who’s a new dad of an insomniac new-born. I’m sure that some educators will have lots of comments on the choices Clay makes when it comes to working and babysitters but no harm is done, so what?
I’m a huge fan of Kellerman’s ‘Alex Delaware’ stories and I was curious how this new series would turn out. I needn’t worry about it; the quality is just as high as ever and even the style of writing and story development are very similar. There’s no life-threatening heroics by superheroes, but hard work and slowly evolving theories as the result of many interviews with a long list of people that may have knowledge about either mystery.
This is the 3rd book in this series and the supporting characters are well fleshed out and the family dynamics already established. Clay Edison hasn’t yet made a lasting impression, but I’m sure that with more stories he’ll find the way to my heart as well.
The 2 investigations both involve infants and extensive families with many siblings and other relatives. Sometimes it was a little bit confusing to remember which family belongs to which baby and investigation. You have to keep your mind with you at all times.
The fighting about the development and digging between contractors, university, and protesters continues for the whole book and is responsible for some very funny scenes. It’s very realistic when it comes to the politics and mechanics of protest organisations. They’re a bit ridiculed in this story and I must admit that I don’t see much ground or reason for their protests myself.
The ending contains an interesting dilemma of how to react to newfound information about historical crimes.
I thank Netgalley and Random House for the free ARC they provided me with and this is my honest, unbiased review of it.
I listened to the audio and kept on having to go back because it was difficult to sort out the different characters. This was not one of Kellerman’s better books.
bit disappointing kellerman book
Half Moon Bay by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
For me this book had a lot going on and it took a while to get there. Good fleshed out characters but none that I really had an affinity for,it moved slow. I like these authors so I believe it was me and the story just did not grab me. It wasn’t a bad story just not for me. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this and leave my opinion.
I have been a huge fan of Jonathan Kellerman for MANY years but this book really left me cold. It was confusing and the stories just drug along. I guess that I’m only giving the book three stars because it’s Kellerman. In fact I probably would not have finished if it had been some other author.
This was a well-written, entertaining book. The story had interesting characters and a combination of personal information and cases that created depth and suspense. The story moved quickly and I didn’t want to put it down. I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more books by these authors.
Half Moon Bay is the third book featuring Clay Edison, and while I haven’t read the first two, the authors do give sufficient background information. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Clay is a personable character. Despite that, I still struggled with this one. The case was interesting enough, but I felt like it got a bit lost. The writing was dry at times, kind of matter-of-fact, which didn’t help, but then we had some lengthy descriptions of things that had nothing to do with the case. I can see the point in some of it. Clay is a new dad and has all the problems that go along with that as well as that new dad, proud as a peacock attitude, so some information about his adjustment gives us something we can connect with. Even if we don’t have a baby, most of us have either been a new parent at some point or we know one, so it’s easy enough to form a connection and to like Clay. However, I can’t see how detailed descriptions of feedings, changings, tummy time, etc have anything to do with the case other than the bones are a child’s and as a new parent, that gives Clay a basis for a connection. That doesn’t change the fact that it felt like too much, at least to me, but it does create a catalyst for Clay to need to solve this case. In the end, I found this to be a story that had great potential but didn’t quite live up to it. For me, it wasn’t a bad story, but it wasn’t a particularly good one either.
This was a good read but it was slow. It is definitely not an action packed thriller. There wind up being two investigations going on but they both seem to plod along. The characters are good and believable. The mysteries are good and fairly involved. All in all, a good book. I haven’t read the earlier books in this series but will give them a whirl as I love the Alex Delaware books that Jonathan Kellerman writes.
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and voluntarily chose to review it.
As the saying goes, “The apple does not… ” This is especially true when reading and reviewing Jesse and John Kellerman’s new Clay Edison Novel, Half Moon Bay. Clay is a Coroner with the city of Berkeley, CA. A set of bones is discovered in a city park in Berkeley. Soon enough the bones are identified as those of a long-missing child. The father resides at San Quentin, a maximum-security prison in California.
Clay also gets involved in a case that hits closer to home. It also orbits around a long lost child, it’s parents, and how the child met its fate. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. The plot has several twists and turns which lead to a surprising denouement. The Clay Edison series is highly entertaining and it is well worth your time. And do not forget to pick up the other adventures that are part of the series.