From Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, May 2001: This is Tom Corcoran's third Alex Rutledge mystery, in a series set in the Key West tourists rarely see. Rutledge, a forensic photographer, lives among the eccentrics who make Key West their year-round home. He has made his share of enemies on the island and has romanced many of the women, so there is a feeling of family about this series--with all the dysfunction that word can imply.
Rutledge is photographing a construction project when he is approached by two women, both of whom have ties to the construction project (and apparently to everything else of importance in Key West). Within minutes Rutledge is set upon by two young men who definitely mean him harm. He fights them off. Within hours, Rutledge is called out to photograph two murders--a man dressed in women's clothes and a headless corpse lying on a bench. Rutledge finds himself trying to make sense of the two murders and how they are connected with the attack on him, while also butting heads with some important locals, including Butler Dunwoody, a project developer new to town.
Rutledge can't help feeling suspicious of Dexter Hayes, the watch commander who calls him to photograph the first body. The son of a disgraced cop, Hayes makes no effort to keep the integrity of the crime scene intact and dismisses Rutledge from the scene soon after he starts photographing. Then ex-sheriff Tommy Tucker, another disgraced officer, asks Rutledge to meet with Mercer Holloway, a more entrenched island property developer.
Soon Rutledge is up to his neck in murder and intrigue, and the worst part is trying to tell the good guys from the bad. Corcoran writes in a concise and breezy style, and Alex Rutledge should be attracting more fans to his laid-back lifestyle, which always includes a murder or two. --Otto Penzler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Key West crime scene photographer Alex Rutledge (The Mango Opera; Gumbo Limbo) returns for his third fast-paced adventure. Someone is recreating a number of bizarre murders dressing victims in drag, making off with heads and our hero is tapped as a main suspect. In clearing his name, Rutledge leads a fine tour of the area, from the Green Parrot bar to fishing flats in the mangrove forests. The best aspect of this novel is summed up in the line, "Key West used to be a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem." Corcoran captures this local atmosphere extremely well he clearly knows the turf (his photographs have appeared on several recordings by Key West mainstay Jimmy Buffett). But the style he uses to make this novel exciting invests every action with the same weight, from opening a beer ("I took the bottle, twisted the cap, spun it into the trash") to Rutledge being chased in his Shelby Mustang by gun-wielding assassins. Corcoran often seems almost postmodern, sitting outside his narrative and noting, "Instead for want of an action word they had messed with us." Or, regarding the convoluted and not very believable solution to the mystery: "`You missed your calling,' I said. `All these cable networks are looking for script writers.' " Sure to please fans of the series and folks who enjoy lightweight Florida crime novels.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
