RED RIGHT RETURNING

by Anne St. Edmunds ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 1996

A first novel with a picturesque setting--tiny Dutchman's Island, off the New England coast. Artist Mick Mersi has returned there after a four-year absence, mostly spent grieving for his wife Claudia, who'd left her island house and studio to him after dying in a plane crash. Staying with Claudia's close friend Penelope Winslow and her art student daughter Sandy, Nick learns that Penelope is now divorced from lawyer husband Chap and, for the first time since Claudia's death, he feels ardent interest in a woman. But all that goes on hold when Mick finds the body of Sabrina Ferris on the beach--possibly strangled by a camera strap with Sandy's name on it. Sandy shocks her mother and Mick by confessing to the crime, prompting Mick to investigate on his own, starting with the tenants renting his house--respected art curator Trudy Glass and Russian Evgeny Otkresta, her latest boy toy. Others had contact with the mysterious victim, who used a series of aliases, but it's not until Mick talks to a distraught Sandy--in hospital under guard--that he understands the hatred and fear the depraved Sabrina aroused. More tragedy follows before Mick can get on with his life. A bit overplotted, and studded with passages of high-flown prose, but salvaged by lively characters, an intriguing background, and, for art lovers, a steady stream of perceptive observations on painters and familiar works of art. Different and diverting.

Pub Date: April 9, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996

Categories: FICTION