Fatlands
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A PI signs on as bodyguard to a spoiled teenager—but the simple job explodes in murder in this crime novel from a CWA Silver Dagger Award–winning author
Chaperoning a rebellious teenager around London isn't how private eye Hannah Wolfe planned to spend the weekend. But a job's a job, especially when it comes from her mentor, ex-cop Frank Comfort.
Mattie Shepherd is supposed to celebrate her fourteenth birthday with an extravagant shopping spree followed by an evening at the theater. When work calls her scientist father away, Hannah gets the job as stand-in parent. But things go from bad to tragic when violence intervenes.
Mattie's father, Tom, heads up chemical giant Vandamed's independent cancer research department—the biggest in the country. Vandamed is also on the Animal Liberation Front's hit list for using animals in its experimental labs. Death threats are par for the course. Until a fatal car bomb explosion adds premeditated murder to the mix.
Now Hannah's on a hunt for a killer, and her search will expose a massive corporate cover-up and rampant greed. Avenging an innocent death could cost her everything—including her lover, Nick.
A must-read for fans of Raymond Chandler, Sue Grafton, and P. D. James, Fatlands will keep you guessing right to its dramatic end.
Fatlands is the 2nd book in the Hannah Wolfe Crime Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although plenty of mystery authors are currently rounding up the usual suspects from the ranks of the animal rights movement, Dunant (Birth Marks) claims the territory for her own in this fine work, thanks principally to her sharply ironic, appealingly introspective PI, Hannah Wolfe. Hannah, who never met a bacon sandwich she didn't like, hires on to escort 14-year-old Mattie Shepherd around London on a birthday shopping spree when the teenager's father, Tom Shepherd, says he can't do the honors. It turns out that scientist Tom, whose firm uses animals in its research, has received death threats, most likely from the radical Animal Liberation Front. Then a murder draws Hannah, a quintessential street-smart city gal, to the less than gentle countryside. Dunant's crisp characters compensate for the slightly disappointing ending. Particularly appealing is Hannah, whose observations about such PI indignities as empty larders, loneliness, getting beaten up and needing to discern the thin line between good and evil are frequently funny, occasionally poignant and always insightful.
