Death Notice: A Pete Brady Mystery

Karl's complex, gripping novel opens with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Pete Brady, introduced in Killer's Ink , leaving New Orleans for a more tranquil life in small Troy, La. As editor of the parish weekly, Brady is in trouble again when he runs an ad for Cory Wilde, announcing his homecoming after serving 29 years for the rape-killing of a teenaged girl. In the uproar against Wilde's return Brady senses fear as well as anger. Obeying his instincts, he asks questions: Why did the jury spare the convict from execution, given the unassailable evidence against him? Who engineered a parole for such an unspeakable criminal? After murders, arson and a presumed suicide, Brady steps up his investigation, inciting violence from a mob out to lynch him and Wilde. Numerous realistic characters, good and evil, absorb the reader in the tragic mystery, right up to its unpredicted resolution. (Feb.)