From Publishers Weekly
Truman's 23rd Capital Crimes novel (after 2006's Murder at the Opera) offers little suspense and even less insight into the wheelings and dealings of contemporary Washington, D.C. One day, U.S. Senator Lyle Simmons, a presidential aspirant, arrives home to find his wife, Jeanette, murdered in their foyer. As the police investigate, fissures in the public facade of the Simmons's marriage appear, and Simmons's oldest friend, retired detective Phil Rotondi, who lost Jeanette to Simmons during college, wrestles with whether he should share all he knows about the politician with the authorities. Frequent flashbacks to those college days disrupt any narrative flow, and the florid and uninspired writing ("Washington! Was there any other place in the world with as much intrigue on a daily basis, and with so much at stake?") won't lead readers to confuse this mediocre thriller with the Machiavellian plotting of writers mining similar ground such as David Baldacci.
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From AudioFile
Trumans Washington mysteries are always well plotted and full of local color. This one involves a senator with presidential ambitions and a murdered wife, a former DA intent on finding the killer, and a lobbying firm with murky secrets. The multiethnic cast of characters--the Asian policeman, the smooth African-American lobbyist are two--present a ripe opportunity for a narrator, and Phil Gigante does most of them well, although a few sound like caricatures. But Gigante gets the self-important, controlling senator just right. He also conveys vocally who the villains are, so the denouement may not be much of a surprise. Trumans series sleuths, Mac and Annabel, participate in this entertaining mystery. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine--
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