Fans of smart, sexy, slightly screwed-up female crime solvers can add a new name to their list of favorite characters: Thea Kozak. When the heroine of Kate Flora's Chosen for Death takes time away from her career as a consultant to private schools to solve the disturbingly brutal murder of her adopted sister, Carrie, her investigation turns up painful truths she's reluctant to face. Still recovering from the emotional desolation of her husband's accidental death and the shock of Carrie's murder, Thea reenacts her sister's search for her birth mother in hopes of finding the killer in the process. Accompanying Thea--and occasionally battling with her--on her journey of discovery is Andre Lemieux, a Down Eastern detective with more than crime solving on his mind. Flora's full-bodied, complex characters bob and weave, and occasionally collide, in an intricately laid plot that explores the sometimes uncomfortable side of intimacy. More than just another well-written detective novel, Chosen for Death is also a thought-provoking study in identity, autonomy, and family dynamics that mystery lovers are certain to enjoy.

From Publishers Weekly
Because her main characters-Boston-based educational consultant Thea Kozak and Detective Andre Lemieux of the Maine State Police-are engaging, the flaws in Flora's debut are more irritating than fatal. Easy jokes affect even the naming of the victim, who is Thea's adopted "sister Carrie." Worse, Thea's melodramatic motivation is hammered into readers with repeated variations of the theme, "I can't let someone kill my sister and get away with it." Although the sisters have recently drifted apart, especially since Carrie moved to Maine, Thea believes the murder relates to Carrie's search for her birth mother. From the condition of Carrie's bludgeoned corpse, Andre believes that it is a straightforward sex crime. When Thea finds evidence in Carrie's apartment linked to her sister's search, she decides to duplicate the potentially fatal hunt herself, rather than turn the clues over to Andre-even though their relationship has progressed from scrapping to "a tingle" when they touch. Flora's characterization is assured and her plotting is tight and credible. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Already devastated by the untimely death of her husband, young Thea Kozak swears she will track down the murderer of her adopted sister, Carrie. Apparently, it was Carrie's search for her biological parents that led to her brutal death in Camden, Maine, and Thea heads there to retrace Carrie's final steps. Despite assistance by an attractive local policeman, Thea almost meets the same fate. An easy, reflective pace, complex heroine, simple plot, and natural prose should draw an audience to this first novel-the first of a series.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Thea Kozak is madder than hell, and you can't blame her. Before she's recovered from her husband's death in a car crash, her adopted sister, Carrie McKusick, is assaulted and killed up in Maine, where she'd gone to search for her birth parents. When Thea doesn't have quick enough answers for Detective Andre Lemieux of the Maine State Police, he provokes her by showing her horrific photos of Carrie's corpse. When she treks up to Carrie's place to clean it out and finds that Carrie had been seeing her brutish high-school boyfriend again, the boyfriend beats her up, douses her with beer, and rams her car into a tree; and when she reports back to her stiff-necked family, they close ranks against her, refusing to believe her story and refusing to authorize her request for Carrie's birth records. So Thea, haunted by a dream in which Carrie asks for vengeance, retraces her sister's steps on her own, runs an obstacle course of self-righteous adoption agency bureaucrats and antisocial social workers, and reaches a revelation every bit as nasty as the clues have predicted. Thea's inexperience, or first novelist Flora's, reduces her dialogue to a stream of tag lines (``I wanted to make love to that inscrutable, fiercely controlled trooper who hid a secret human being inside, and I was scared stiff by my feelings''). But there's enough raw pain--Thea's, Carrie's, even the rabbity birth mother's- -behind the clich‚s to propel this new series to a red-hot start. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Midwest Book Review
Thea has rebuilt her life after her husband's death: now her younger sister is brutally murdered, and the policeman investigating her case seems determined to also break through the family's long-held systems of psychological defense to learn the truth about Carrie's relationships and death. Chosen for Death is a gripping murder mystery taunt in psychological suspense evolves.

Review
"A fast-paced New England mystery, laced with a wry humor and full of insights into fragile human relationships." J.S. Borthwick

Book Description
Thea Kozak's younger sister is murdered, leaving Kozak wondering if her sister's adoption and search for her birth parents have something to do with her death. New paperback edition of the 1994 novel that introduced Kozak.

FROM THE PUBLISHER