A Darkness Of The Heart by Gail Bowen

 
 This is the eighteenth Joanna Kilbourne mystery so fans will know the backstory.  Joanna is now sixty and still married to Zack, who is a lawyer.  But getting older doesn't mean no more surprises are left.  Joanna finds out that her father was not her biological father.  That was his best friend who was also the father of her best friend, Sally.  Joanna had adopted Sally's daughter, Taylor, when Sally died suddenly when Taylor was four.  

The story of Sally was being made into a movie as Sally had been a famous artist.  Taylor becomes friends with the actress who plays her mother and the producers want to make a series featuring both Sally and Joanna and their childhoods.  Joanna is thrilled except for having to work with a man named Gabe, who is the executive producer and who makes her feel uneasy.

The lighting director on the movie is another friend of the family.  He has a teenage daughter who, after an accident, has the brain of a five year old.  This girl is kidnapped and found later walking down the street crying with fifty dollars in her hands and evidence of sexual molestation.  Who would do such a thing and to such a helpless victim?  Days later, it is revealed that Gabe was the perpetrator and that he had been molesting Taylor's friend the same way.  When he plummets to his death from his penthouse balcony, suspicion falls on those Joanne loves.  Can she find the murderer?

Gail Bowen has written a series reminiscent of that of Elizabeth George in that the reader becomes invested in the lives of Joanna and her family and follow them from book to book.  The book discusses the seamy world of pedophilia and those who suffer from their exposure for years afterward.  The revelations that Joanne is given explains much of her own childhood and the reasons her parents always seemed distant and gives her insight into her life.  I listened to this book and the narrator did an excellent job and has narrated several of the other books in the series.   This book is recommended for mystery readers.