Full Circle
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A dying art collector asks Bernhardt to revisit him in his darkest hour
The first time Betty Giles went missing, her employers wanted her dead. They hired Alan Bernhardt, theater director and sometimes PI, to find her, but when he discovered their scheme, he drew a sawed-off shotgun to save her life. Now Betty's missing again, hiding somewhere in Europe, and her old bosses want her found. Will Bernhardt deliver her to the man who once tried to have her killed?
It certainly isn't easy to refuse Raymond DuBois, a billionaire art collector who insists his feud with Betty was nothing but an innocent misunderstanding. He's dying, and promises he can clear her name if Alan can only locate her. The case seems like a trap, but the director has one thing working for him. Unlike last time, he knows that trusting anyone could be suicide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For his fifth Alan Bernhardt novel, Wilcox (Find Her a Grave) thrusts the San Francisco-based actor and part-time sleuth back into the stolen-art case that exploded into violence in the series debut, Bernhardt's Edge. In that book, Bernhardt saved the life of art expert Betty Giles, who, along with her boyfriend, was blackmailing aged millionaire Raymond DuBois, owner of several pieces of stolen art. Now the FBI is putting heat on Bernhardt to reveal Betty's whereabouts, while DuBois, who would like to preserve his reputation by returning the purloined pieces to their rightful owners, hires Bernhardt to do so. Before long, the PI-working closely with his lover and colleague Paula-tumbles into another tangled imbroglio that features several villains and makes him tap into his own darkest, most brutal impulses. Elaborate recaps of the first book make this novel occasionally difficult to follow; and Bernhardt, who tends to pose rather than sleuth, sometimes seems just a collection of mannerisms. The action is challengingly complex, however, with plenty of interesting stolen-art lore, and this outing, while not Bernhardt's best, still should satisfy his fans.
