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Publisher's Weekly
The neatly detailed setup, twisting plot and colorful cast of characters in Crider's latest mystery (after Blood Marks ) will keep readers riveted, so it's too bad that the ending reveals a rather pallid villain. A Mexican-American civil servant named Ramona Gonzalez, rumored to be promiscuous and talkative, is found strangled in an Austin, Tex., dumpster. It turns out that Gonzalez was pregnant and had ties to a powerful state senator, his bisexual chief aide and others. The capital city is thrown into turmoil when another body is found the next day. Assigned to the case by the dotty, paranoid governor, Texas Ranger Ray Hartnett must investigate a varied assortment of suspects, ranging from right-to-lifers to political time-servers, naive coed Capitol guides to powerful lobbyists. There's also a nice subplot of a budding affair between middle-aged Hartnett and a civil servant. Crider, who writes the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and Professor Carl Burns series, demonstrates an insider's thoroughgoing knowledge of Texas politics. (Feb.)
Kirkus Reviews
A lighthearted look behind the dignified facade of the state capitol in Austin, Texas, where the strangled body of pretty, promiscuous Ramona Gonzalez, one of the building's cleaners, has been found in a basement hamper. Texas Ranger Ray Hartnett has scarcely begun to investigate when there's a second killing-this time the victim is Ron Matson, chief aide to State Senator Samuel Wilkins, a married man whose fondness for young women is common gossip. Bisexual, closeted Ron was close to Todd Elton, one-time capitol tour-guide, now a small-time drug-dealer who meets his pet clients in the capitol's chapel. Hartnett is drawn to attractive Chief Administrator Jane Kettler, provoking the jealousy of besotted head tour-guide Stan Donald. All of this is further complicated by a straggle of homeless sleeping around the building, a blackmailing head janitor, and the ineptitude (to say the least) of the building's security police. A perilous chase up endless staircases to the capitol's dome brings a tension-filled climax to this wryly amusing, mildly raunchy, thoroughly entertaining novel by the versatile Crider (Blood Marks, p. 634, etc.).
Genre: Mystery
The neatly detailed setup, twisting plot and colorful cast of characters in Crider's latest mystery (after Blood Marks ) will keep readers riveted, so it's too bad that the ending reveals a rather pallid villain. A Mexican-American civil servant named Ramona Gonzalez, rumored to be promiscuous and talkative, is found strangled in an Austin, Tex., dumpster. It turns out that Gonzalez was pregnant and had ties to a powerful state senator, his bisexual chief aide and others. The capital city is thrown into turmoil when another body is found the next day. Assigned to the case by the dotty, paranoid governor, Texas Ranger Ray Hartnett must investigate a varied assortment of suspects, ranging from right-to-lifers to political time-servers, naive coed Capitol guides to powerful lobbyists. There's also a nice subplot of a budding affair between middle-aged Hartnett and a civil servant. Crider, who writes the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and Professor Carl Burns series, demonstrates an insider's thoroughgoing knowledge of Texas politics. (Feb.)
Kirkus Reviews
A lighthearted look behind the dignified facade of the state capitol in Austin, Texas, where the strangled body of pretty, promiscuous Ramona Gonzalez, one of the building's cleaners, has been found in a basement hamper. Texas Ranger Ray Hartnett has scarcely begun to investigate when there's a second killing-this time the victim is Ron Matson, chief aide to State Senator Samuel Wilkins, a married man whose fondness for young women is common gossip. Bisexual, closeted Ron was close to Todd Elton, one-time capitol tour-guide, now a small-time drug-dealer who meets his pet clients in the capitol's chapel. Hartnett is drawn to attractive Chief Administrator Jane Kettler, provoking the jealousy of besotted head tour-guide Stan Donald. All of this is further complicated by a straggle of homeless sleeping around the building, a blackmailing head janitor, and the ineptitude (to say the least) of the building's security police. A perilous chase up endless staircases to the capitol's dome brings a tension-filled climax to this wryly amusing, mildly raunchy, thoroughly entertaining novel by the versatile Crider (Blood Marks, p. 634, etc.).
Genre: Mystery
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