Peter Coldrick had no past; that was the conclusion drawn by years of personal and professional research. Then he employed the services of one Morton Farrier, Forensic Genealogist – a stubborn, determined man who uses whatever means necessary to uncover the past. With the Coldrick Case, Morton faces his toughest and most dangerous assignment yet, where all of his investigative and genealogical … skills are put to the test. However, others are also interested in the Coldrick family, people who will stop at nothing, including murder, to hide the past. As Morton begins to unearth his client’s mysterious past, he is forced to confront his own family’s dark history, a history which he knows little about.
This is the first book in the Morton Farrier genealogical crime mystery series.
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This is the first book in a 5 book series..I’m now reading book 4, one of the best series I’ve read in a long time!!
This book is the first in the Morton Ferrier Forensic Genealogist series. I started reading it when I was unwell and devoured it in a single day. I loved the jigsaw puzzle aspect of Morton’s job, the painstaking searches and the linking of past and present.
My only problem with it was that at the end of the book, there was the first few chapters of the next. And so, of course, I had to keep on reading. And the next. And the next. I am now on the fourth in the series and seriously addicted! It’s been fascinating watching how Morton and Juliette’s characters evolve and develop through the series.
So a massive thank you to this talented author for many hours of absorbing reading. Looking forward to many more.
Whoever would have thought that a Forensic Genealogist could have such an exciting career! Well, actually the excitement started with the current case, precipitated by the mysterious suicide of Morton’s new client. Peter Coldrick had urgent questions about his family history and had paid Morton the staggering fee of $50,000 to solve them. Suicide just didn’t add up after his behavior from the night before: Peter had begged Morton to come over and check out what he had just discovered. Morton promised to come the next day, but the next day was too late. The police called it suicide and closed the case. But unwilling to let things be, our genealogist started digging further and came up with lots of clues pointing to a much deeper conspiracy, prejudicial to some very dangerous people attached to the government. As if getting his house blown up as a warning wasn’t enough to distract him, Morton was struggling with an unpleasant discovery about his own background. I see lots of parallels between his own past and the unfortunate Coldrick, which may have helped push him along.
Morton was driven; that much is certain. In fact, he was driven to do many illegal and questionable things to discover hidden evidence, and went so far that he almost got himself killed—a couple of times. Why he didn’t get killed is one of the unanswered questions that I found a bit frustrating. Many people were implicated and I had a bit of trouble keeping everyone straight, so for the most part I pretty much went along for the ride. There was some hopping around from past to present which I found more distracting than helpful. Nonetheless, the action was brisk; the plot took many twists and kept me guessing until the end. It was fun to read and a real page turner.
The past holds all sorts of mysteries for those who enjoy researching their family tree. But what if no such avenue of research is available? What if someone were to find that their past simply didn’t exist?
Despite the fact that Peter Coldrick has no family and no family tree, his past does catch up with him in a way that sets Morton Farrier on a course of investigation that led to places that neither he nor the reader could possibly expect.
This is a really interesting mystery story with a refreshing perspective that presents new opportunities and avenues for investigation than amateur sleuths or police detectives usually employ. It draws on some intriguing elements of World War II history as the background for an investigation that takes place seventy years later and in a completely different context.
HIDING THE PAST is the first in the Morton Farrier, forensic genealogist, series. As a keen family historian myself, the story really appealed to me. And I loved it!
Told from Morton’s POV, the reader is as intrigued as he is when his latest client, apparently desperate to learn more about his ancestry, suddenly decides to shoot himself shortly after engaging Morton’s services. Totally unconvinced by the suicide assessment and suspecting murder, Morton sets out to get to the bottom of the mystery. It soon becomes clear that there are people out there who will stop at nothing to prevent Morton uncovering their secrets.
Morton is an an engaging character and I really like him. He’s an easy-going sort of a guy, with a wry, often bemused, sense of humour which made me laugh. His girlfriend, Juliette, is a serving police officer which isn’t always such an asset to Morton as he imagines it could be. But while Juliette doesn’t share Morton’s passion for genealogy, they both agree on the importance of getting the “bad guys” – even if their methodology differs!
Woven through the story is the subplot of the mystery behind Morton’s own ancestry and identity, which helps define both his character and his outlook on life. We learn something of it by the end of the book, but there’s still more to come which will be threaded through this excellent and enjoyable series of mysteries.