Collins's one-armed, ruminative p.i. Dan Fortune, now living in Santa Barbara (The Irishman's Horse, 1991, etc.), is hired to find the killer of Cassandra Reilly, an intelligent drifter working to muster support for rights of the homeless. Chief suspect is misfit Jerry Kohlen, her latest lover, who has vanished. He eludes Dan and the police until Dan finds him, a suicide, amid the carnage of his family. The case of Cassandra Reilly is closed for the police, then, but not for Dan, who's convinced by subtle clues that Kohlen was not her killer. He's sure the solution lies in the bad vibes between the homeless and the various, mostly vicious street- gangs; an odd clique of students from a local, military-type prep school adds another suspicious element. All the major characters are given lengthy family histories—always traumatic—as threats and physical attacks pepper our hero, who doggedly pursues his own scenario to its final resolution. A close-up look at the denizens of a lot of needy, seedy neighborhoods, but the story's momentum and menace are lost in a flood of socioeconomic musings and amateur psychoanalysis. Violent, profane, and mostly dull.
Pub Date: March 25, 1992
ISBN: 1-55611-316-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
A delightful debut spiced with a tempestuous romance and certain to appeal to fans of genealogical research and history.
A Texas genealogist’s search for the truth of an old murder precipitates a present-day killing.
Austin-based Lucy Lancaster is doing research for Texas legend Gus Halloran, who’s convinced that his great-great grandfather Seth was murdered despite the 1849 newspaper stories that say he was trampled by a horse. The sole witness was photographer Jeb Inscore, and Lucy hits the jackpot when she visits his great-granddaughter Betty-Anne Inscore-Cooper, whose boxes of daguerreotypes include one that depicts Seth lying dead in a bloodstained shirt. Inscore’s journals reveal that someone with the initials C.A. paid to have Seth murdered; the multiple hoof marks on his body were intended to hide a knife wound. The most likely candidates are Cantwell Ayers and Caleb Applewhite, whose descendant is running for the Senate against Halloran’s son. Soon after a tipsy Lucy tells reporters at a news conference how she found the evidence of the old murder, she’s visited by FBI Special Agent Ben Turner, who has a lot of annoying questions about her work for Halloran and her amateur investigation, as boxes of daguerreotypes have been stolen from Betty-Anne. Fortunately, Lucy’s turned over the other daguerreotypes and journals to her friend Winnie Dell, the curator for a history center at the University of Texas at Austin. Unfortunately, Winnie is murdered and the daguerreotype of Seth stolen. Lucy’s officemates, Serena and Josephine, are constantly trying to get their gal pal back in the dating game after a bad breakup. They consider Ben a good bet even though the pair constantly wrangle over Lucy’s sleuthing. In the end, Lucy’s hot-and-cold relationship with Ben helps to turn up more clues about the old murder that’s caused her friend’s death.
A delightful debut spiced with a tempestuous romance and certain to appeal to fans of genealogical research and history.Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-18903-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal...
A gumbo seasoned with ghosts, love, and murder on the bayou.
When 30-something Declan Fitzgerald of Boston, a successful lawyer and a member of a large and loving family, breaks off his engagement to very suitable Jessica, he knows he needs to change his life. Lawyering is not fun anymore, so, recalling Manet Hall, an old deserted plantation house he once visited with law school classmate and New Orleans native Remy, he buys the property and moves down south. Declan is also a gifted craftsman, a born decorator, and very, very rich. Soon, he meets beautiful Lena, who’s visiting her grandmother Odette, Declan’s friendly Cajun neighbor. Declan is as certain that Lena is destined to be his wife as he was that Manet Hall would become his home. But, surprise, Lena has a troubled past (like the house) and is determined to resist Declan’s courtship. While he suits Lena and works on the place, Declan experiences troubling dreams. It seems he’s actually reliving the novel’s parallel story, which took place in 1899. In that year, the maid, Abbey Manet (from whom Lena, coincidentally, is descended, and who married wealthy Lucian Manet), was raped and murdered by her brother-in-law Julian as she nursed her baby daughter. Her body was dumped into the bayou by her mother-in-law, who despised her. And grief-stricken husband Lucian, away at the time, being told that Abbey had run off, committed suicide. Now, in an unconvincing twist of gender and reincarnation, it’s Declan who hears a baby crying , experiences childbirth and rape as the reincarnation of Abbey, while Lena is Lucian. The two accept all this with equanimity, and, Manet Hall’s secrets revealed, it becomes the setting for predictable and much foreshadowed resolutions.
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal fans will enjoy.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14824-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
