Dead Tease
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A hot August afternoon and Midwest Clinic CEO John McNeil has been working late. Working on his latest conquest, that is. Jen Williams is twenty-six, in charge of graphics for the hospital's PR division—and quite attractive in a healthy, athletic kind of way. She is quick to laugh and a little too quick to fall for guys. She is no virgin. And she is one of three women—including his wife—intimately familiar with McNeil.
When Jen's youthful body is found with a single stab wound through the heart, suspicion falls on both McNeil's wife, who insists she is being stalked, and the striking hospital physician with whom he had just ended an affair. Pressure to find the killer falls on Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn "Lew" Ferris and Dr. Paul "Doc" Osborne, the retired dentist and forensic dental expert whom she has deputized to help with the investigation—when they are not taking a break for fishing and other personal pursuits. When the mayor demands Lew take early retirement—and Doc has to babysit his teenage granddaughter who won't stop texting—the frustrations mount.
Desperate for a few hours off—and persuaded by Ray Pradt (a fishing guide who wears a stuffed trout on his head, so they should have known better)—to try fly fishing from kayaks, Doc and Lew find themselves in life-and-death straits on the river. This leads to an unexpected and macabre discovery that just may break the case.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Reading Houston's spare 12th Loon Lake mystery (after 2011's Dead Deceiver) is like listening to a raconteur catching you up on the rural Wisconsin community, complete with contextual interjections and regionalisms (e.g., "razzbonya," local vernacular for nincompoop). The stabbing murder of Jen Williams, a young woman of easy virtue who just had an afternoon tryst with a married man, is the first of several unnatural deaths. Deputy coroner Paul Osborne, a retired dentist, assists Loon Lake police chief Lewellyn Ferris in her investigation, which centers on neighbors and staff at the clinic where Williams worked, including a hostile ER physician, Cynthia Daniels. Series fans will enjoy spending time with old friends, but others may wish the suspense wasn't limited to wondering how high the body count will rise before Ferris stops the culprit.