The Tell-Tale Treasure [Paperback]

The Tell-Tale Treasure is a cold-case missing person story, set in St. Petersburg, Florida, featuring two main characters: Ivy Chen and Rosie Renard.? Ivy is a renowned classical musician, who plays an exotic musical instrument called an erhu, somewhat similar in sound to a violin. She disappeared after a series of concerts with the Florida Orchestra in the St. Pete area and?was never found. There were leads, but?no arrests, no sign of foul play, and no trace of her distinctive erhu, with a dragon head carved into the wood.
Thirty-nine months after Ivy's disappearance, Rosie Renard, owner of a secondhand shop in St. Petersburg, opens a footlocker from an estate sale and finds items that belong to Ivy and were shown in all the local newspapers at the time of her disappearance. Rosie?alerts the police. Experienced detectives check out everything?that came from the estate sale and?find new evidence that take the case in a different direction. The cold case heats up.
Offering multiple points of view,?The Tell-Tale Treasure moves back and forth in time from 2008 when a stalker kidnaps and imprisons Ivy to 2012 when Rosie discovers Ivy's belongings and the case?leaps forward.?With a precise timeline and chapter headings that name the characters involved, readers will be in the moment, hearing the character's words and thoughts, seeing their plans in action, reading Ivy's journal, rooting for her as she employs the erhu's tricks and her storytelling skills to escape the kidnapper's wrath.They will root for Rosie as she assists the detectives in setting a trap to catch the kidnapper during a street festival. They will cheer her on as her intuition, savvy ways,?and athletic abilities give the kidnapper plenty to worry about, including his life.?
In a dramatic moment, Rosie and Ivy's?stories separated by time and place, come crashing together at the dragon-boat races in St. Pete?in February, 2012, the year of the Dragon.?Readers will turn the final pages l“p