Watch Her is the third book in the Hester Thursby series, but it can easily stand alone on its own merits. Administrator Maxine Pawlikowski has dedicated her life to Prescott University, a for-profit school in Boston run by Tucker Matson and his family. Innovative, smart, and conscientious Maxine also keeps watch over Tucker, his wife Jennifer, and their daughter, Vanessa, like a sheepdog guards its flock.

Author Edwin Hill takes his time setting up his characters, but it’s time well spent. Harvard librarian Hester meets Maxine at a Prescott University art event showcasing the work of a dear friend. When an overworked Maxine hires her to track down some discrepancies in Prescott University’s database, Hester accepts, assuming it will be an easy assignment. But it turns out the missing data is tied to more sinister events involving naïve young girls and a predatory school official.

The complex relationship between a mother and her daughter is a strong emotional theme that runs throughout Watch Her. We meet daughters who want to disappear, reinvent themselves, and start anew, and mothers who can’t, or won’t, let go. There are good relationships, bad relationships, and everything in between, but all are tied together by a fierce protectiveness—some more successful than others.

Jennifer Matson, mired in an alcoholic haze, seems to have given up, happy to acquiesce any closeness with her daughter, Vanessa. Prescott student Barret knows his hardworking mother means well, but will she accept or even recognize her trans child, whom she only knows as her daughter Bethany?

And when Hester starts investigating the decades-old drowning of Tucker Matson’s two-year-old daughter, terrible choices made long ago add another layer to this solid mystery.