Practice to Deceive PDF
Preview Practice to Deceive
The next in the series by the author of the 1996 Edgar Award winner, Penance.
The brash and resourceful St. Paul private investigator Holland Taylor takes on an unpromising embezzlement case -- an elderly woman has been cheated out of her life savings. But when Taylor tracks down Levering Field, the unscrupulous businessman who handled her investments, he finds that more is at stake -- Mrs. Gustafson's financial ruin is only one strand in a spider's web of fraud and intrigue.
With the help of his elegant attorney lady love and an eccentric computer-genius friend, Taylor starts probing undercover into Field's activities and soon finds that someone seems anxious to derail his investigation. The game quickly becomes serious when Field is found shot to death and Taylor is first suspected of the crime and then shot at himself.
Frightened at the dangerously widening net but determined to get answers, Taylor follows a trail to computer records that reveal a list of prominent people with large investments in Field's operations. Millions of dollars are at stake, as well as the reputations of the most powerful people in The Cities. As a hired killer pursues him, Taylor races to put together the last pieces of the puzzle, find the money, and catch the people who are willing to do anything to stop him.
-- "An engaging protagonist, lots of local color and a neatly twisted, complete plot". -- Minneapolis Star Tribune
At first, reading about Holland Taylor might seem like déjà vu. He's a former cop turned private detective; he has an African American associate who covers his back, a high-level friend on the police force, and a smart lady who tries to keep him on the straight path. He also practices martial arts, brews exotic coffee, and favors a special brand of local beer. But author David Housewright isn't doing a Spenser rip-off; he's just having fun telling a good story while ringing a few changes on Robert Parker. Taylor works out of Minnesota's Twin Cities, a long way from Spenser's Boston, and Housewright's plot is as open-faced as his genial homage. Asked by his father to help an 85-year-old neighbor recover the life savings stolen from her by an oily investment counselor, Taylor uses a cross-dressing computer genius to harass the swindler. Things quickly turn nasty and lots of shots are fired--some are deadly. Housewright's Edgar Award-winning first book about Taylor, Penance, is available in paperback.
From Library JournalBrian Emerson returns with a deadpan Dragnet reading as Holland Taylor. This PI caper opens with a series of trite high school pranks as Hollands first attempt to squeeze out the embezzler of elderly Mrs. Gustafsons life savings. Millions of dollars and the reputations of high-profile Twin Cities citizens are at stake as a hired gun stalks Holland and key suspects Levering and Amanda Field. Housewright does a meager job of characterizing Taylor and Cynthia Gray, Taylors love interest cum lawyer, while others are left with cardboard personalities. Recommended only where recorded PI stories are very popular.Sandy Glover, West Linn P.L., OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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