The Dutch
A Milan Jacovich Mystery
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
#12 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
"Brilliantly plotted, with a powerhouse climax." — Booklist
In street parlance, "the dutch" is another expression for suicide. That's what everyone assumes happened to Ellen Carnine when her broken body is found 150 feet below the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in downtown Cleveland. A terse, sad suicide note has been left on the screen of her home computer.
But her grieving father asks private eye Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovitch) to figure out why a bright and successful, dot-com executive like Ellen took her own life. Milan is introduced to a different reality by Ellen's four best female friends, an old lover, her employers, and some of the lowlifes from Cleveland's meanest streets.
The search for the truth leads Milan into the unfamiliar territory of Internet chat rooms, where he learns a great deal about the faceless people who live part of their lives behind a screen, becoming best friends—or bitter enemies—without actually meeting.
Milan pushes too far—and uncovers the most brutal and heinous crime he's ever faced.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A distraught father asks Milan Jacovich, Cleveland's dogged Slovenian-American private eye, to discover why his daughter Ellen jumped off of a bridge to her death, in Roberts's 12th workmanlike whodunit (after 2000's The Indian Sign). Although it appears a simple, lucrative job, Milan uncovers inconsistencies (e.g., Ellen was in her pajamas and barefoot, yet her feet were clean). Two friends for whom she worked at Wheetek Inc., a Web-site design company, provide no clues to Ellen's suicide. Milan's son's computer-expert girlfriend guides him to "fat girl" chat rooms that the obese Ellen visited, but the leads gleaned from these all prove dead ends. The plot picks up speed after two hoodlums warn Milan off the case and he persuades two homicide cops that Ellen was murdered. Perhaps the book's best moment is the surprise ending, which hinges on a sinister pornographic "fetish" Web site. Milan, loyal and brave, possesses a finely tuned moral sense. However, we hear too much about his failed marriage, while otherwise his personal life remains a blank. Roberts paints an intriguing picture of Cleveland, even if most of what we learn is what his hero eats and the names of delicatessens and streets. Though Milan has a Jack Russell terrier's determination to uncover rats, the white hats and black hats are too easily discernible. Finally, many readers will find the emphasis on physical appearance the women are either gorgeous or fat and ugly disconcerting.
