Deadline for a Critic
The Father Koesler Mysteries: Book 9
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
"Kienzle's ninth may be hailed as his most complex and finest mystery." —Publishers Weekly
"... good character analysis and a tantalizing story make this one of Kienzle's best." —Library Journal
"As Kienzle addresses serious modern issues, he stops to digress and tell his wonderful stories. He always plays fair with readers, though, providing a neat solution with a twist." —Chicago Tribune
It's curtains for Ridley Groendal. When the performing arts critic for the Detroit Suburban Reporter dies suddenly, insiders know he could have choked on his own rage. Having returned to Detroit from a vituperative career at the prestigious New York Herald, Groendal was known to have destroyed more than a few reputations with his vicious criticism. Was his death an act of revenge?
If so, at least four of his victims had ample motive. Was it Dave Palmer, whose concerts after Groendal's review would forever be heard in a minor key? Was it Carroll Mitchell, whose plays could never again get a serious reading? Was it Charlie Hogan, whose newspaper career was put out with the garbage? Was it Valerie Walsh, who must now look offstage for a dramatic role? Or was it long-time companion Peter Harrison, who may have had his own dark reasons to want Groendal dead?
Readers know Father Koesler is no newcomer to the role of sleuth. Deadline for a Critic is the ninth in the Father Koesler series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kienzle's reputation has grown with the success of eight bestsellers about Detroit priest Father Koesler. (The first, The Rosary Murders, is due for release as a movie.) Catalyst in the ninth is the sudden death of a vicious critic, Ridley Groendal. His longtime homosexual lover, Peter Harison, testifies that Groendal died after a huge dinner, which taxed his weak heart, but Koesler suspects murder. He questions several people who grew up with him and the dead man, including their former mates at the seminary where Groendal abruptly gave up studying for the priesthood. Koesler's investigation discloses the motives for the critic's malicious attacks on innocent victims, whom he blamed for his own failures. As the priest talks to men and women whose lives and careers Groendal had ruined, the shocks proliferate. The strongest occurs in the final, unforeseen disclosure. Kienzle's ninth may be hailed as his most complex and finest mystery.
