Judson (The Violet Hour, 2009, etc.) is a thoroughly accomplished writer. Still, the plot is noticeably underdone. For...
A jittery shamus opts for a life without peeping but finds that the past won’t stay put.
Remer, once a big-time, big-city private eye who’s lost whatever first name he ever had, rethinks his vocation after a searing experience scares him silly, scars him permanently and generates intimations of mortality. Self-exiled from Manhattan, he plants roots in Southampton, where the nice little liquor store he owns helps him sleep better at night. In addition, he acquires lovely Angela, a girlfriend bred in the bone for sympathy, understanding and such undemanding sex that she too helps him sleep better at night. But Remer’s past catches up with him in the form of Mia Ferrara, the never-quite-renounced love of his life who’d left him flat, vanishing with $80,000 of hard-earned cash from his liquor business. Now, according to Mia’s mother, she’s disappeared again. Will Remer return to sleuthing long enough to track her down? If he’s successful, Mrs. Ferrara will pony up the stolen money. With some reluctance Remer signs on, mounts an investigation and, of course, finds himself back in the world he’d been at such pains to escape: chicanery, murder, generalized mayhem and, worst of all, possible betrayal. Is Remer being set up? And by Mia?
Judson (The Violet Hour, 2009, etc.) is a thoroughly accomplished writer. Still, the plot is noticeably underdone. For connoisseurs of style over substance.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-38361-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
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