A Diamond Before You Die
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A “likable, savvy New Orleans private eye” deals with marriage, murder, and Mardi Gras in this mystery by the author of The Last Madam (Publishers Weekly).
Richard Cotton, aspiring to become district attorney, has hired private detective Neal Rafferty to keep tabs on his wife—who, in turn, has hired someone else to keep tabs on him.
It’s almost Mardi Gras in 1980s New Orleans, and when the masks go on they hide a multitude of sins—like bribery, corruption, and drug-running, not to mention Richard Cotton’s own particular secret. And once bodies start showing up, Rafferty realizes that adultery is far from the only scandal. In this town, all things eventually settle into the Mississippi River mud. It’s just a question of what stays buried . . .
“Wiltz bring a refreshing individual outlook to the formula of hard-boiled detective fiction.” —The Washington Post Book World
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although Wiltz (The Killing Circle) sets his story just before and during Mardi Gras, peoples it with a wide variety of New Orleans high- and low-life and provides a couple of grisly murders, he hasn't written a very interesting book. Private eye and ex-cop Neal Rafferty, tailing the wife of socialite lawyer Richard Cotton, meets the cool, beautiful Lee Diamond, herself a P.I. being paid by Mrs. Cotton to follow Mr. Cotton. Lee has just karate-chopped a possible intruder into the Cottons' burning fireplace. After that dramatic start the book becomes a tangle of corrupt politics, drug- and porn-peddling, shifting alliances, a hot affair between Rafferty and Diamond and, most unfortunately, the story of Rafferty's attempts to avenge the five-year-old murder of his previous lover. The plot twists and violence are gratuitous, the talk is stilted, and the ending, meant to be ironic, is unsurprising. As portrayed here, New Orleans could be Cleveland during a dull week.
