"False Fortune" by Twist Phelan

It would be meaningless for me to sit here and try writing just another standard review when considering the latest offering from Twist Phelan.  It is one extraordinary work the ordinary could never approach.  FALSE FORTUNE, if not the best of Phelan’s four, it is indeed in a three-way tie with the other two. I say ‘three’ for the reason of Hannah Dain, Phelan’s intrepid adventurer/attorney.  She was not featured in the first book of the Pinnacle Peak series, HEIR APPARENT; and Hannah Dain is what makes FAMILY CLAIMS, SPURRED AMBITION, and now FALSE FORTUNE a book series to which any true reader should keep attuned.
 

In the 1950s, as this story tells, the Tohono O’odham Indian Community (for whom Hannah worked in SPURRED AMBITION) gave the Defense Department permission to test a secret project on the reservation lands.  Uranium left over from this testing ended up being dumped in mine shafts on the lands, which resulted in a poisoning of the water supply.

Hannah’s sister Shelby (half-sister, as is learned in the prior tale), working with one of her father’s law school friends, Franklin Rowley as lead attorney, represents members of the tribe who suffered ill effects from the water.  Hannah is not involved in the case, but when it becomes necessary for her to stand-in for her sister to inform the judge of the settlement reached, and she encounters members of the tribe who want their day in court, the case is unexpectedly thrust upon her.  Rather than settlement, they are going to trial.

Any other mystery/courtroom drama would be content, and prosperous in its output of a palatable story, with this one storyline.  The Tohono O’odham tribe is split (some seeking settlement; some seeking trial); a woman runs Hannah and Shelby off the road when they are on their way to videotape the mines where the uranium was dumped (either traumatized into negligence or on a suicide mission, Hannah was unsure); mysterious trucks travel roads on the reservation where no vehicles are permitted; the scientist who gathered samples of the mines’ contamination for Shelby’s case unexpectedly committed suicide.  Right there is plenty to create a satisfying book for any reader.

Phelan, though, with FALSE FORTUNE, gives even more.

Previously Hannah discovered her father was not Richard Dain. She was the child of an affair her mother Elizabeth had with a man by the name of Tel Moore.  Tel Moore, through his marriage, also had a teenage daughter, Anuya.  Hannah and Anuya had been corresponding by email since each learned of the other; but when Anuya appears at Hannah’s door unexpectedly, the drama that was Hannah’s life strikes once more.

No one, aside from Richard, knew of Hannah’s origin.  How would this new sister affect her tenuous relationship with Shelby, whom she was just now beginning to develop a sisterly relationship with, and who just completed treatment for alcohol addiction?  Would it push her backwards into the bottle?  And what about Shelby’s relationship with her new boyfriend Jake?  If she relapsed, would he stick around?

Making a deal with Anuya, Hannah agrees to let her stay as long as she keeps the revelation of them being sisters to herself.  With having broken up with Cooper and his moving out of the apartment, she was not prepared to deal with the drama a new sister from New York stirred.  Yet she also did not wish to see this lively sprite of a burgeoning woman leave now that she had arrived.  Though never having met, the two shared much in common.

So, with the courtroom drama and mystery of the radiation on the Indian lands, the appearance of Hannah’s half-sister, the concern for her other half-sister’s stability – and the relationship that stability enabled – and the pining for a man she just broke up with – again, Hannah carries enough for this one book.

Phelan, though, adds one more wrinkle to this story in the form of a character out of the first book, HEIR APPARENT, Jerry Dan Kovacs.  He becomes quick friends with Anuya; and after a map is discovered in a desk Hannah buys for her apartment (when Cooper moved out, not much was remaining as far as furniture), a hunt for treasure on the reservation ensues for the two of them.

Somehow, and I can’t really say how, Twist Phelan suffuses all these differing stories together into one story that is immensely satisfying.  It is a five-course meal one spends an entire evening savoring.  Every facet is a succulent taste of what literature is meant to provide a reader.  Not only is an ideal protagonist given in the form of Hannah Dain (she is immensely capable, while also being deeply flawed – as we all are – through the drama that is life), the antagonist is hidden in the shadows to the end (as all villains are), the supporting players are characters themselves (with the same accompanying strengths and weaknesses), and the story is without flaw.  It is believable.  Every piece falls into place.  Nothing is trite and regurgitated from a hundred other stories.  FALSE FORTUNE is a fresh story everyone who knows how to read the English language should enjoy.  When is some movie studio going to grab hold of it and say, ‘Hey, this needs to be put up on the big screen.’ ?