SACRIFICIAL GROUND

by Thomas H. Cook ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 1988

Cook (Blood Innocents, The Orchids) moves from psycho-thrillers to the police-procedural genre with a moody, competent, slightly pretentious item set in Atlanta--where cop Frank Clemons is going through heavy times: losing his wife, mourning his dead teen-age daughter (suicide), boozing, getting beaten up, the whole post-Wam-baugh shmear. Understandably, then, Clemons is happy to concentrate on work. And the case at hand is the murder of rich, pregnant orphan Angelica Deveraux, 18, found dead in a grungy part of town--thanks to an injection of lye-based poison. Clemons, teaming up with older black cop Caleb Stone, learns--primarily from Angelica's older sister Karen--that the dead girl, though super--beautiful, was an utter loner: chilly, detached. The father of her unborn child, it turns out, was a prep--school acquaintance--a one-night stand whom Angelica (a virgin) passionlessly seduced. Her evenings, Clemons eventually discovers, were often spent in ""slinking"" around Atlanta's kinkier art galleries in a variety of costumes--and attracting attention, especially from a couple of far-out artists (one gay, one not). The sleuthing here, though modestly absorbing as it chugs along, is uninspired--with a ho-hum windup (largely from out of left field). The hero's tragic trappings--including two sudden deaths and a star-crossed romance with Karen Deveraux--are laid on thick with solemn, purplish prose. Still: readable, steadily paced legwork for those who like their cops bruised, dour, and lonely.

Pub Date: March 24, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION