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Overview
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times calls the writing of Tony Gibbs "unpredictable and suspenseful." In Shadow Queen, his first Diana Speed novel, he mixed a new series sleuth and a headspinning, original plot. Now Gibbs brings back the beautiful Diana Speed, a New York publisher's chief financial officer with a background in government intelligence. Her assignment here is to "follow the money" in a chilling case of dirty politics and the politics of dirty movies, a case that has given someone a four-letter reason for revenge.When the congressman who humiliated porn film producer Mary Magdalen Tolliver is found dead, Tolliver becomes a murder suspect. Diana Speed's boss is determined to squelch any plans for a book on the congressman's death. Drawing on her ties to the intelligence community, Diana begins to unearth the truth and go after Tolliver as she takes off on a cross-country spree of crime, scandal--and murder.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Diana Speed, six feet tall and blonde with a hyperactive metabolism and prodigious appetites, is asked by her boss, leonine billionaire Roger Channing, to handle a woman who has become a threat to him. Roger won't tell Diana who the woman is or what she's going to do, just that the threat involves the publishing company that he owns and Diana manages. With the help of Eric Szabo, a security agent and recovering alcoholic, Diana sets out to find some answers. Meanwhile, Congressman Philemon Fielding has been found murdered in front of a porn theater in Times Square. After the murderess, Magdalen Tyrrell, a producer of pornographic films, turns out to be Diana and Eric's quarry, they discover that she has another, even more heinous crime in store. Diana and Eric are a tough yet vulnerable duo, but the overly complex plot, which features myriad twists, tends to overwhelm them, leaving their promise, ultimately, as unfulfilled as an election year pledge. (Jan.)Library Journal
Gibbs (Shadow Queen, Mysterious Pr., 1992) once again presents Diana Speed, a financial officer now working as new assistant editor for a publishing company. Fearing an attack after receiving personal threats in the mail, the company's billionaire owner secretly hires an alcoholic security guard, who works with Speed to track a killer with connections to Times Square porn.George Needham
During a nationally televised hearing, a vile Congressman relentlessly interrogates a self-styled performance artist about pornography produced with her NEH grants; she gets her revenge by strangling the cretin outside his favorite porn theater on Times Square. This successful bit of poetic justice inspires her to attempt a decapitation of the American government by bombing the House of Representatives during the State of the Union speech. Opposing her: a band of special operatives organized by a reclusive, manipulative billionaire who just happens to be the artist's father. Add to these improbabilities a few disaffected ex-soldiers with skills in mortar and poison gas, an alcoholic security expert, some slimy South American colonels, and an incompetent black market arms dealer; then work in the back-stabbing world of the publishing industry and you are left with . . . well, a story that goes nowhere while trying to go everywhere. On the other hand, if you don't stop to think about it, this wild mess can be fun.Book Details
Published
June 1, 1996
Publisher
Mysterious Pr
Pages
384
Format
Paperbound
ISBN
9780446401098