In Cowley County, KS, farmer Ed Morgan is in a bind. A fall from the hayloft leaves him unable to run the farm while he recuperates, so he demands that his oldest daughter come home and help. Dr. Marah Morgan, a pediatrician in St. Louis, is reluctant. Her biblical teachings tell her to honor her father, but his distant and domineering nature during her childhood destroyed her feelings for him. In an attempt to make peace with her past, Marah returns home, where she is confronted by her still-distant father; the neighbors' perpetually sunny little girl, nicknamed "Perky"; a group of suspicious scientists looking for Indian remains on the family farm; and Judd Hunter, a mysterious drifter looking for work. As Marah uncovers Judd's real purpose in coming to the farm (he is an FBI undercover agent), she also discovers the true purpose behind the scientists' mission. They are in fact bio-terrorists looking for samples of smallpox, eradicated by the World Health Organization during the 1970s. Palmer (A Kiss of Adventure) provides a suspenseful thriller combining modern fears about terrorists with Judd's search for faith and Marah's questions about her own in a title everyone can enjoy. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Palmer (A Town Called Hope; Finders Keepers) departs from her usual genre of Christian romance for this character-driven suspense novel. Cowley County, Kansas, with its unpredictable, merciless weather patterns, is home to Big Ed Morgan, an ancient tower of a farmer whose tendencies toward extreme severity match his surroundings. Independent and stubborn, Morgan relies on no one until one backward step off a barn loft sends him tumbling into nothingness. The injured Big Ed has to ask his estranged eldest daughter, Marah, a well-coiffed young pediatrician in St. Louis, for help running the farm. Marah, whose own simmering bitterness toward her father has been well honed, finds the idea of temporarily running the farm as distasteful as re-entering the world she fled 18 years earlier. Still, Marah and Big Ed have more on their minds than just getting along; mysteries surround an Indian burial site located on Morgan's land, and questions about Marah's mother's death 25 years earlier contribute to a murderous tangle that ties the past with a haunting present. Palmer's contemporary thriller reads plausibly and sweeps readers into the story, pairing deep emotions with numerous suspenseful scenes. Palmer certainly doesn't preach, yet spiritual truths come part and parcel with the story. Balancing her characters' flood of negative emotions with their spiritual reawakening is difficult, but Palmer succeeds admirably. Fans of Dee Henderson's fast-paced Christian thrillers will find Palmer's novel just as riveting. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Romance writer Catherine Palmer tries her hand at a realistic though heavily plotted novel in A Dangerous Silence. A St. Louis physician, Marah Morgan, must rush home to the farm in Kansas when her lone wolf of a father, Big Ed, takes a fall. Marah and Ed are deeply estranged. Marah resolves to get him through the harvest, park him in a rest home, and sell the farm, but her plan soon faces obstacles. Big Ed's obstinacy is chief among them, but there is also a mysterious crew on the farm, digging for Indian skeletons as well as a farmhand, rather mysterious himself, spying on the crew. This all proves interesting enough, but it's Ed who steals the show, who seems like a crusty old farmer with real issues, and is perhaps Palmer's best character ever.