The Dog Killer of Utica
An Eliot Conte Mystery
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
“Vivid and unnerving . . . Eliot Conte is an instant original.”
—The Washington Post
Someone's shooting dogs in Utica . . .
Ex-PI Eliot Conte (“part Mike Hammer and part William S. Burroughs,” according to The Washington Post) thought he’d escaped the sordid underworld of long-established Mafia networks, unsolved crimes, and the specter of his political kingmaker father that make up the background in his gritty hometown of Utica, New York.
He’s returned to his old love, teaching American literature, and a new love, policewoman Catherine Cruz. But the peace doesn’t last long.
First, one of Eliot’s students, a Bosnian Muslim, disappears, leaving a trail of texts and e-mails that suggest a terrorism plot underway. Meanwhile, the tightknit community is disturbed by a series of brutal murders of dogs.
And no matter where he looks, the trail seems to lead back to secrets Conte hoped he’d buried forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lentricchia's fast-paced if somewhat mild follow-up to The Accidental Pallbearer finds retired Utica, N.Y., PI Eliot Conte living on an inheritance, with time to indulge his passion for opera and teach a college course in English literature. Things take a sinister turn after the disappearance of a Bosnian Muslim student of his attracts the attention of Homeland Security, and a dark secret from Conte's past connects to seemingly random acts of violence, including murder. Terse, screenplaylike prose propels the action through Utica's mean streets (e.g., "5:30, sipping a second double-shot espresso in the kitchen"; "It's Monday, his and Catherine's date night, their eat-out night, but Conte cannot imagine eating, in or out"). Despite the title, the book, thankfully, contains no wholesale canine slaughter or graphic details of same.
