Dead on the Island
Truman Smith Mysteries, no. 1
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Nominated for the Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel
PI Truman Smith has become a loner after failing to find his sister Jan during a recent search of Galveston Island. He jogs on the Seawall, plays with his cat, and reads lots of Faulkner books. He is pulled from his self-imposed retirement when his old high school football buddy Dino asks him to find a young girl named Sharon. As Tru begins his investigation, dead bodies begin to appear and Tru himself is attacked. His search for Sharon takes him to all sorts of interesting places on and near the Island. Bill Crider spins a good mystery tale in a wonderful setting with interesting characters and enough plot twists to keep readers guessing until the last few chapters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anthony Award winner Crider introduces private investigator Truman (Tru) Smith in this promising start of a series. Having returned to his native Galveston, Tex., to try--unsuccessfully--to find his missing sister, Tru spends his days reading Faulkner and running. His old friend Dino disrupts his solitude when he asks Tru to locate Sharon Matthews, whose mother had worked in one of the string of whorehouses run by Dino's uncles when they controlled Galveston in the days of wide-open morality. At first Tru thinks the girl ran away after she discovered her mother's past. But when he finds Sharon's boyfriend murdered and then is beaten up outside a Houston nightclub, Tru begins to fear for Sharon's safety. The disclosure of a vital secret by Dino leads Tru to dig into his own and Dino's pasts to find the answers for several crucial questions. Crider ( Too Late to Die ) has created another well-drawn protagonist, this time a moody, introspective PI in the finest tradition, who works in a seamy city smoldering with old and dangerous secrets.
