Dearly Departed - Softcover

David Housewright is also the author of Penance (winner of the 1995 Edgar for best first novel) and Practice to Deceive, available from Foul Play Press. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

212 days after Alison Emerton disappears, her husbands attorney asks Holland Taylor if hell start looking for her. Since litigation-happy lawyer Hunter Trumans closest prior approach to Twin Cities p.i. Taylor (Penance, 1995; Practice to Deceive, 1997) was to sue him, Taylor wonders why Trumans chosen him for this workand why Alisons boorish husband Stephen seems so little concerned about Alisons reports that rapist Raymond Fleck was stalking her. When he starts to talk to the people who knew Alison best, though, Taylor gets the first inkling that this is going to be a chimera of a case, one as hard to hold onto as a greased pig. Fleck guilelessly admits his interest in Alison but says she returned it with interest. When Taylor attacks Flecks alibi and gets the cops to arrest two different suspects, at least one of whom is obviously covering for the other, it ought to be a great day (even if itll mark the last of Trumans $400 daily paychecks). But Taylor, still unsatisfied, suddenly gets a completely new idea about what happened to Alison, and takes off for the Wisconsin town of Deer Lake to dodge bullets, dish dirt about a new local casino, share drinks and conversation with its presumptive Native American owners, and follow Alisons loyal friends around very, very closely. Understated, literate, and tricky as they come, even if the last few surprises arent up to the first dozen. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.