The Hunter by John Lescroart

 

Wyatt Hunt's life is good.  He's a private investigator with his own firm and lives in a great converted warehouse space.  He is starting a relationship with Tamara, who works with him.  So the text catches him by surprise.  How did your mother die? it asks.  Wyatt is nonplussed.  He grew up as the adopted son of loving parents and his mother is very much alive.  But he is intrigued enough that he asks his parents what they know of his birth parents.  The answer is not much.

But Wyatt doesn't let that deter him.  As an investigator, he is used to getting answers.  He soon discovers that his mother was murdered when he was three.  His father was tried twice but not convicted either time as there was nothing but circumstantial evidence that he was involved.  A priest that Wyatt tracks down who knew the couple has a letter from his father that he was given to safeguard if Wyatt ever came looking.  In it his father says he didn't have anything to do with the murder but he knows he needs to leave town.  He did and no one has ever heard from him since.

As Wyatt tries to discover what happened all those years ago, he starts to uncover some unsavory secrets.  His mother may have had a connection to Jim Jones before he took hundreds to the jungle in Guyana and forced their suicides.  There was a neighbor who was his mother's good friend and who his father didn't trust.  Then people involved in the investigation start to be killed and Wyatt knows he is on the right track to uncover secrets buried for decades.  Can he find the truth all these years later?

This is the third book in The Hunt Club series but can be read as a standalone.  Wyatt's backstory is interesting and readers will be swept along with the events that the investigator and his partners uncover.  The love relationship seems more unlikely but lays the foundation for future books.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.