When I bought this secondhand I was actually after one of the Skip Langdon series as I’d met Skip in a short story and wanted to know more about the New Orleans cop. This however is a story about San Francisco lawyer Rebecca Schwartz. I think it’s the fourth in the series.

This book is set around the Monterey Bay Aquarium where one of the staff is found floating dead in a tank. Rebecca is holidaying and visiting an acquaintance who works at the aquarium when that aquaintance is arrested for the murder and she has to jump back into lawyer mode to represent her.

I found most of the characters a bit thin, there were plenty of possible suspects but few of them were developed enough so that the reader could decide whether to suspect them or not. The best characters were the cast of children who play a big part in the plot.

The plot wasn’t bad with a few interesting aspects that were mainly due to the presence of the children rather than the adults. Many of the adults on the edges of the plot seemed to act without apparent motive.

Whilst I enjoyed this I’m not sure I’ll be rushing to track down more of Smith’s books even though I suspect that this isn’t her best work.