Billy Straight
An outstandingly forceful thriller
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4.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The secrets to a murder lie with a twelve-year-old child...
In Billy Straight, detective Petra Connor must protect a young boy from a brutal killer. Perfect for fans of Harlan Coben and David Baldacci.
'Filled with insight' - Stephen King
When beautiful Lisa Boehlinger Ramsey is found brutally stabbed to death in LA's Griffin Park, Detective Petra Connor and her partner Stu Bishop investigate. Lisa had publicly revealed that her ex-husband, millionaire TV star Cart Ramsey had beaten her, making him the prime suspect. Still, Petra and Stu must tread carefully; the top brass don't want a repeat of the OJ Simpson scenario on their hands.
But there's a witness - twelve-year-old Billy Straight, too frightened to come forward. And when Lisa's parents put a reward out on Billy, only Petra realises the true extent of the danger he is in. She must act quickly if this little boy is not to be wiped out...
What readers are saying about Billy Straight:
'[A] compelling, interesting and satisfying murder mystery'
'A first rate page turner'
'Sheer genius, that keeps you guessing the whole way through'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although this is only the second of Kellerman's 14 novels not to feature psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware (the first was Butcher's Theater, 1988), it has all the author's familiar strengths: a broad cast of well-defined characters, a fast-moving plot and themes sponged from the daily news yet turned fresh. (And Delaware makes a brief appearance at the end.) Twelve-year-old Billy Straight, a precocious homeless kid with a taste for reading, flees Los Angeles in terror after witnessing a murder in Griffith Park. The homicide inquiry is headed by Petra Connor, a determined, intuitive detective, and her partner, Stu Bishop, who is distracted by a family tragedy. The murder victim turns out to be Lisa Ramsey, ex-wife of the famous, and abusive, Cart Ramsey, who plays a private eye on a late-night television series. Kellerman does a fine job revealing how memories of the Simpson case shadow the Ramsey investigation, affecting the ways Petra and Stu are allowed to go about their work. The search for Billy by the cops and several villains forces a comparison with John Grisham's The Client, but Kellerman's novel is far more complex, switching points of view among a multitude of characters and amid a series of distinctive subplots. By the dramatic climax, Kellerman has pushed a number of familiar buttons--but with enough panache and surprises to satisfy his most demanding fans.
