Trace. Too Old A Cat

Trace #6

by Warren Murphy

Just when the leader of an erotic ecstasy cult dies in writhing agony...when the beautiful wife of a Mafia prince hits hubby where it hurts the most...and when the kinky daughter of a super-straight broadcast executive threatens to make nightmare news...Trace's luscious, blackjack-dealing, semi-hooking girlfriend Chico decides to trade in his body for a better model... Now Trace needs all the help he cant get--from a kooky pair of cops named Razoni and Jackson. From the street-smarts of his still hard-as-nails dad. And of course he needs Chico to come back with her own special brand of aid and comfort. Maybe then he can separate the goodies from the baddies in a Big Apple scene that's rotten to the core...and wrap up three deadly mysteries in one blood-red bow...

Genres: Mystery

Paperback

First published August 5, 1986

About the author

Warren Murphy was an American author, most famous as the co-creator of The Destroyer series, the basis for the film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. He worked as a reporter and editor and after service during the Korean War, he drifted into politics.

Murphy also wrote the screenplay for Lethal Weapon 2. He is the author of the Trace and Digger series. With Molly Cochran, he completed two books of a planned trilogy revolving around the character The Grandmaster, The Grandmaster (1984) and High Priest (1989). Murphy also shares writing credits with Cochran on The Forever King and several novels under the name Dev Stryker. The first Grandmaster book earned Murphy and Cochran a 1985 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and Murphy's Pigs Get Fat took the same honor the following year.

His solo novels include Jericho Day, The Red Moon, The Ceiling of Hell, The Sure Thing and Honor Among Thieves. Over his career, Murphy sold over 60 million books.

He started his own publishing house, Ballybunion, to have a vehicle to start The Destroyer spin-off books. Ballybunion has reprinted The Assassin's Handbook, as well as the original works Assassin's Handbook 2, The Movie That Never Was (a screenplay he and Richard Sapir wrote for a Destroyer movie that was never optioned), The Way of the Assassin (the wisdom of Chiun), and New Blood, a collection of short stories written by fans of the series.

He served on the board of the Mystery Writers of America, and was a member of the Private Eye Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Crime Writers League and the Screenwriters Guild.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I remembered, this book is where the Trace series began to run out of steam and I can see why Murphy stopped it after the next one. Trace and his girlfriend move to New York City to help out his dad's floundering PI business and stumble into a strange killing of a cult leader. The humor feels particularly forced, although the running joke of Chico wanting a handgun is pretty funny. I wasn't crazy about the two New York City cops, as they seemed too stereotypical and the racial slurs weren't funny at all. It just kind of chugged along and finally ended. I'll finish it up with the next and last book, but it was a good run, and I highly recommend the first 4 or 5 still.