Loose Coins [Anglais] [Poche]

Joe L. Hensley, a former circuit court judge and lawyer, writes his series of mysteries about a detective with a similar background to his own (Robak's Witch, Robak's Fire) with a perfect ear for the nuances of small-time criminality. Now he and Indiana prosecutor Guy M. Townsend have caught that same voice in their first joint effort.

"I might have heard a little," a seedy little coin hustler is telling private eye Al Sears about rumors of a contract on Al's life. "I can't remember where it came from. I just heard it said around, after the story in the papers, that maybe that night at the game might not be the last time someone would try to get you. I guess it's for something bad you did. Bar talk and coin talk is that someone wants you in the grave."

Al, a former hotshot lawyer laid low by booze, is working part-time in the coin shop where he spent much of his former money. When a would-be robber of a poker game turns out to be an unsuccessful assassin, Al is forced to search through the pockets of his past for clues to who might want him dead. A glamorous ex-wife is a good suspect, likewise a couple of supposed pals. Even in the current tidal wave of alcoholic detectives, Sears has enough going for him to make a return visit worth waiting for. --Dick Adler --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

When he hit the bottle, Memphis lawyer Al Sears lost his wife, his practice and his beloved coin collection. Now he's sober, doing a little private investigating and helping out his good pal Ralph in his coin shop. When Al and Ralph become a hit man's apparent target, Al is forced to dig into the dregs of his past to find out who wants him dead and why. Al takes a cavalier approach to his many woes and to the assorted people in his life: Judy, his icy ex-wife; Harlan, his friend, fellow coin collector and a surprisingly wealthy and powerful ex-cop; and Sue, Al's reticent new love. Near the end of the novel, when Al gets clobbered with a shovel, is force-fed a bottle of booze and wakes up drunk on a narrow ledge, readers will agree that this guy has had "cat's lives." Al's an absorbing lead, but there's a paucity of character development here, and co-authors Hensley (Robak's Witch) and Townsend don't do a whole lot with their Memphis setting either. Even so, they exhibit a lean narrative style that's appealing for its lack of pretension.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Disbarred lawyer and reformed alcoholic Al Sears works part-time for a coin-dealer friend and part-time for himself as a small-case private detective in Memphis. When the gun-wielding crook who unsuccessfully interrupts one of their poker games turns out to be a contract killer, Al begins looking for seriously disgruntled clients from his previous life as an up-and-coming criminal lawyer. His search spotlights his own ex-wife, the missing wife of an unscrupulous businessman/crook, the murder of a scrofulous sometime coin-seller, and missing gold coins. This successful and solidly constructed collaborative effort by mystery writer Hensley (Robak's Witch, St. Martin's, 1997) and Townsend should appeal to both private eye and coin-collecting fans.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

When the man who's interrupting the Thursday night poker game in the apartment over Ralph Shedden's coin shop is wearing a ski mask and toting a shotgun, it's easy to see that he doesn't just want to get dealt in for a few hands. But Ralph's assistant, part-time shamus Al Sears, knows more about the guy, even before he helps Thursday night regular (and former Memphis police chief) Harlan Roberts kill him. He's convinced that John Shelton (``The Shell''), the contract killer now cooling in the morgue, was out to kill him. Which of the disgruntled clients Sears couldn't help in his pre-alcoholic former life as a defense attorney wants him put on the spot? And how is The Shell tied in to Benny Wilson, a small-town thief who just happens to have been murdered the same night? In their first collaboration, Hensley (Robak's Witch, 1997, etc.) and Townsend provide a nonstop parade of entertaining lowlifes. But since most of the cast members pass by only once or twice, it's hard to get caught up in the question of which of them is after a fortune in collectible coinsor to feel slighted when the authors pluck a culprit from the ranks who could just as well have been anybody else. Now that Sears has set up shop, let's see if he can catch a case with a little more meat on its bones. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.