Overview
In an unsettling encounter on the streets of Las Piernas, newspaper reporter Irene Kelly fails to recognize the homeless man who declares, "I'm not who I used to be." Only later does she realize that he had been her favorite instructor back in college -- Lucas Monroe. Once a gifted young academic with a promising future, Lucas needs her help, but he's gone missing. Now his name keeps coming up in association with charges of blackmail and possible homicide. Irene wants to know more but no one is willing to talk. And then she stumbles upon a dead body...Irene Kelly and detective Frank Harriman have finally taken the plunge. Yet the newlyweds barely have time to settle into married life when Irene learns that Lucas, an old college friend, needs to see her urgently. By the time Irene gets to him, however, he's dead. Before long, shocking secrets surface about Lucas that make Irene even more determined to learn what got him killed.
Synopsis
I'm not who I used to be....The remark, whispered by a stranger on the street to Irene Kelly, becomes all the more unnerving when the newswoman realizes she knows the man. He's Lucas Monroe, her former college instructor who had looked forward to a brilliant future. Now he's a derelict in hiding, an unlikely suspect in blackmail and murder. What happened to Monroe's life strikes Irene as bizarre. But it's what happens to him in death that fills her with dread. Her long-lost mentor is found murdered, and whatever the picturesque town of Las Piernas is hiding has made some people very rich, very guilty, and very dangerous.
Publishers Weekly
Newly married Southern California newspaper reporter Irene Kelly (seen before in Dear Irene, etc.) doesn't immediately recognize the bum on the bus stop bench who says he knows her. A few weeks later, meeting with some old friends, she learns that he was Lucas Monroe, her statistics teacher in college. That same night, she drives a friend home to find the woman's wealthy husband dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. The next day, the longtime Las Piernas city manager resigns, refusing to give a reason. While tracking that story, Irene hears that a closed circle of the city's rich and powerful men will convene in secret at a local restaurant. Dragging along her homicide detective husband, Irene crashes the rendezvous and is there when one of the men has a heart attack. She then discovers that each of the men at the meeting has been visited by Lucas and presented with a copy of a photograph. Tracing the connections among the city bigwigs, Lucas and the photograph, gutsy Irene gets to the bottom of a mystery that takes on the tangled history of a city's development. Burke is in top form here. Author tour. (Feb.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Newly married Southern California newspaper reporter Irene Kelly (seen before in Dear Irene, etc.) doesn't immediately recognize the bum on the bus stop bench who says he knows her. A few weeks later, meeting with some old friends, she learns that he was Lucas Monroe, her statistics teacher in college. That same night, she drives a friend home to find the woman's wealthy husband dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. The next day, the longtime Las Piernas city manager resigns, refusing to give a reason. While tracking that story, Irene hears that a closed circle of the city's rich and powerful men will convene in secret at a local restaurant. Dragging along her homicide detective husband, Irene crashes the rendezvous and is there when one of the men has a heart attack. She then discovers that each of the men at the meeting has been visited by Lucas and presented with a copy of a photograph. Tracing the connections among the city bigwigs, Lucas and the photograph, gutsy Irene gets to the bottom of a mystery that takes on the tangled history of a city's development. Burke is in top form here. Author tour. (Feb.)Library Journal
The inimitable Irene Kelly returns, this time as the wife of detective Frank Harriman. Irene receives an urgent summons from an old college teaching assistant but when she arrives, someone has killed him. As she seeks the truth, more dead bodies appear. A welcome and inviting read.Emily Melton
Burke's Irene Kelly series just keeps getting better. Her latest has the smart, sassy news reporter married to her longtime lover, cop Frank Harriman. One day at a bus stop, Irene has a disturbing encounter with a homeless wino, only later discovering that the man, Lucas, was once her close friend, a gifted statistician who managed to get even the math-impaired Irene excited about numbers. Lucas has obviously fallen on hard times, so when Irene gets a cryptic message asking her to meet him, she's curious to learn more. But when she goes to the rendezvous, she discovers his dead body--and opens a Pandora's box of troubles. Delving into Lucas' murky past, Irene learns that he was the innocent victim of a plot involving a corrupt land-redevelopment scheme. Determined to clear Lucas' name, Irene launches her own no-holds-barred investigation. Exciting action, clever dialogue, solid writing, and a smart, likable heroine produce a well-deserved thumbs-up.Kirkus Reviews
Old masters of the classic mystery knew how an enigmatic central character can focus tension and raise the stakes. But Las Piernas News-Express reporter Irene Kelly's latest adventure features a cast of nothing but such enigmas. There's Lucas Monroe, Irene's old sociology teacher, now a street-person who, unrecognized, stumbles across her just days before his sad death in an abandoned high-rise; Dr. Andre Selman, the brilliant sociologist who got Lucas dismissed for cheating and Irene seduced into membership in the ranks of the SOS ("Survivors of Selman"); Nadine Preston, the grad student who's been missing ever since Lucas's fall from grace back in 1977; Allan Moffett, the Las Piernas city manager who seems to be retiring one step ahead of the lynch mob; and John Jones, a.k.a. Two Toes, the homeless schizophrenic who's appointed himself Irene's guardian angel. All of them are obviously tied to a long-standing land fraud scheme and a rash of suicides. But with the corruption spread as thick as molasses, it's hard to care which of these prize petunias is finally going to end up taking the fall.Too much of a good thing in Irene's fourth case (Dear Irene, 1995, etc.)—a big, ambitious novel that sinks under the weight of its evil cargo.