Due to a shattered leg from a drug dealer's bullet, homicide detective Ed McAvoy has retired from the Detroit Police Force and become the police chief of Peekamoose Heights, N.Y., a quaint Catskills resort town, in this genial if overly contrived prequel to Stackhouse's first novel, Stream of Death
(2001). After Veronica Loring is found dead in her Jaguar XJS at the bottom of a cliff one snowy night, McAvoy soon decides that the beautiful ex-model turned fashion executive was murdered. McAvoy, who directs amateur plays in his spare time, uses a suitably theatrical if cumbersome device to trap the killer. In addition to some nicely drawn local characters (many of them related to the police chief), Stackhouse delivers five prime suspects—Veronica's business partner, Jennifer Rooney; Veronica's brother, David; Jack Dunbar, a design associate in their firm; Jack's wife, Kim; and competing fashion designer Roger St. Ives. Alas, by the final curtain, when the murderer stands unmasked, many readers will feel that the author hasn't played fair. (POD)
FYI:Stackhouse is also the author of a third McAvoy mystery,
Hickory, Dickory (2002).
