In John Verdons most sensationally twisty novel yet, ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney brings his analytical brilliance to a shocking murder that couldnt have been committed the way the police say it was.
The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPDs top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband -- who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mothers funeral.
Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.
Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.
And the identity of the villain at the mysterys center turns out to be the biggest shock of all.
I enjoyed this story a lot but would have felt better if the Detective had been called in at the start of the murders instead of wading back through everything, including all the trials, after the fact. The ending was terrific and made me chuckle even though an awful lot of murders happened in this story. As much as I love Peter Pan, this one was far from being liked much less clapped for, for his recovery. I rated it a 4* basically because my copy was printed in such a light gray that it was almost impossible to read and at 440 pages, thats a lot of reading!
The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPDs top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband -- who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mothers funeral.
Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.
Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.
And the identity of the villain at the mysterys center turns out to be the biggest shock of all.
I enjoyed this story a lot but would have felt better if the Detective had been called in at the start of the murders instead of wading back through everything, including all the trials, after the fact. The ending was terrific and made me chuckle even though an awful lot of murders happened in this story. As much as I love Peter Pan, this one was far from being liked much less clapped for, for his recovery. I rated it a 4* basically because my copy was printed in such a light gray that it was almost impossible to read and at 440 pages, thats a lot of reading!
