From Publishers Weekly
The murder of a watchman at Plimoth Plantation, the Pilgrim village replica near Boston, brings fisherman-diver Aristotle Plato Socarides (Cool Blue Tomb; Feeding Frenzy; etc.) back into the detective business. His Vietnam buddy, John Flagg, hires Soc to prove the innocence of accused Joe Quint, a Narraganset Indian lawyer and noisy advocate of Native American causes. With the murder hatchet found in his car, which was seen near the Plantation on the night of the killing, the quarrelsome Quint looks anything but innocent. Soc learns that Quint's trouble began soon after he discovered exploitation of Indian artifacts uncovered on Cape Cod. Meanwhile, factions within tribes battle?often violently?over control of future Indian casino rights. Soc himself becomes a target when he spots the connections. Two first-rate sequences capture the danger of diving in strange waters, and Kemprecos, a former journalist on the Cape, knows his territory well enough to disclose the ethnic character and workaday life that most tourists miss.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
A fifth adventure featuring Aristotle ``Soc'' Socarides, Cape Cod p.i., fisherman, diver, and general knockabout (Feeding Frenzy, 1993, etc.), is that common entertainment-fiction combination of the lethal and fairly harmless. Here, Soc is tapped by an old Vietnam buddy to come to the aid of Native American activist Joe Quint, a charismatic rouser of rabble who's possibly been framed for the murder of a tourist theme-village night watchman. Quint so much doesn't want to talk to Soc that he breaks jail and goes into deep hiding. But evidence found during an underwater archaeological expedition, visits by friendly and hostile Indians, and the desire to protect pretty women, among them Quint's idealistic lover Patty, pull Soc into conflict with corrupt gambling interests. Hyperbolic Quint had once advocated the pulverization of Plymouth Rock; let's just say that, in bomb-happy America, he should have been careful what he wished for. Kemprecos can be an appealing enough writer (``Peter was a likeable guy. It was going to be tough pushing the down button on his elevator''), but without the beach-bum existentialism of John D. MacDonald and the bankable funniness of Robert B. Parker, Soc seems merely (and inconsistently) a third-string substitute. Many readers, of course, will find that enough. --
Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
