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YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT by Barbara Paul

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

by Barbara Paul

Pub Date: March 1st, 1992
ISBN: 0-684-19380-9
Publisher: Scribner

The author's Sergeant Marian Larch returns with a solid, if sometimes sluggish, police procedural (You Have the Right to Remain Silent, Good King Sauerkraut, etc.). Larch, working temporarily and rather unhappily in the Ninth Precinct, is assigned by Captain Defalco to head the investigation into the murder of four men, found handcuffed together, each shot through the right eye, identified as a top team of executives from Universal Laser technology—a company engaged in a secret project for the government, which brings FBI agents Page and Holland into the case. The bizarre killings seem to be sending a warning, and Larch, with no other leads, is sure it's a warning to others in the organization. Hard questioning uncovers a second, supersecret project at Universal unconnected to Washington, and company owner Edgar Quinn becomes Larch's chief suspect. A plethora of computer-speak feeds into the solution, along with the Sergeant's emotional roller-coasting and the involvement of her actress friend Kelly Ingram in a final setup that ends the case in a surge of melodrama. An intriguing if not totally convincing plot, an intrepid but vulnerable heroine, and a no- nonsense style—all make for flawed but agreeable entertainment.