PERFECT END

by William Marshall ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 1983

If the murders are bizarre, the humor is blacker than black, and the narration is maddeningly circuitous, then the locale must be Hong Kong's Yellowthread Street Police Station--and so it is once again, in Marshall's seventh weird concoction. This time six cops are found dead at a neighboring police station; they've been bow-and-arrowed to death, it seems; the other cops have fled; and the station has been left immaculately clean! So at first one of the missing cops is the top suspect--but soon he turns up long-dead. . . and is revealed to have been an undercover man rooting out police corruption (which was apparently rife). Furthermore, yet another cop is speared, the police-establishment seems to be covering something up, clues lead to a fortune-teller and the question of Chinese ritual-burial. . . and, as a typhoon hits H.K., there's a nasty showdown between Yellowthread's whimsical O'Yee and the bowman (who, it turns out, hails from Zimbabwe and is carrying out a grand-scale vengeance operation). Less funny than some previous outings, but as creepily gory as any of them: offbeat, stylish entertainment for those who've acquired a taste for Marshall's decidedly uncongenial approach to the police-procedural.

Pub Date: March 14, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION