Vintage Polo
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
"Someone is trying to ruin us. Junior and I have poked around but haven't come up with anything. Our attorney had someone look into it, but came up with nothing. I need a professional. A man with imagination, and guts. Your uncle says you're that kind of man. Can you help me, Mr. Polo?"
It sounds like a fun-filled weekend in the country when Nick Polo's reporter friend Jane Tobin invites him up to Sonoma County for the gala opening of the Baroni Estates sparkling wine facility. But the festivities are soon over for Polo as Angelo Baroni, Sr., drags him away to enlist his professional assistance.
Now semi-retired, Baroni has been able to hold his wine empire together through some tough times: prohibition, recessions, droughts, and foreign take-over attempts. But once again it's under attack, and now someone is upping the stakes to sabotage and arson. The suspects include Baroni's philandering son, his sharpshooting daughter-in-law, and Victor Mardesa, a former casino operator who was cold-shouldered out of Nevada by the mob. As the campaign progresses to kidnapping and murder, both Polo and Jane Tobin find their own lives at risk. And it's up to Polo to sort everything out before it's too late.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A California PI himself, Kennealy ( Polo Solo ) captures some of the classic Hammett/Ross Macdonald spirit in the eighth Nick Polo case, a tale of greed, ambition, nasty sex, blackmail and murder in a rich California family with lots of dark secrets. With his girlfriend, reporter Jane Tobin, Polo is attending the opening of Baroni Estates' grand new winery when he is summoned to meet Angelo Baroni Sr. Wheelchair-bound and with a womanizing son about to be divorced for the third time, the elder Baroni suspects that someone is trying to destroy his winemaking empire. His worries are soon given credibility when an explosion levels the new facility. Polo's investigation opens a can of worms, the nastiest involving a pedophilic, gambling mobster. Two murders and an accidental drowning lead to a lethal duel between Polo and the mob figure, followed by a leisurely explication of tangled relationships and a somewhat ambiguous but satisfying resolution. Polo, whose lawyer is named Collin Wilcox (after another noted mystery writer), and Tobin engage in some too-cute dialogue, but Kennealy moves the plot briskly and deftly lays out his puzzles.
