LIE DOWN WITH THE DOGS

by Jan Gleiter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 1996

Set in Chicago and environs, this gripping debut--winner of St. Martin's Best First Malice Domestic Mystery Novel Contest--starts quietly, with not very successful actor/would-be playwright Carl McCain doing a favor for his old college buddy Gerry Martelli, now a policeman. Carl, widowed father of precocious four-year-old Luke, agrees to hold a package containing a small sculpture for his friend, and soon after finds his son's life threatened. Desperate, he brings Luke for safekeeping to the deep woods cabin where his onetime college lover, Lisa Jacobi, lives with guard-dog Sirius. In a plot twist the author manages to make believable, business executive Robert Cooper runs out of gas in that desolate area late at night just as Lisa and Luke are fleeing from Gerry's badguy partners. Cooper and Lisa team up to protect the boy and, working from Cooper's house in Chicago, try to figure out how Carl (now vanished) got himself into this mess and what's behind it all. Sensitive, independent Lisa finds the divorced Cooper imperious and cold, but their shared mission and sense of being under siege (intensified when Gerry Martelli is found shot to death) changes those feelings, even as their hunter gradually becomes their quarry. A literate, straightforward prose style enhances a story packed with vibrant characters, unhackneyed dialogue, and menacing tension every step of the way. Fans of the genre will hope to hear more from this talented author.

Pub Date: April 9, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996

Categories: FICTION