Hoodwink

by Paula Gosling

Lieutenant Jake Chase: not so much a legend in his own lifetime, more of a cautionary tale. Chase is taken off his Big Case and assigned to what looks like a simple murder: male, middle-to-late sixities, stabbed in the chest one time. Evidence of robbery, no weapon found. Maybe just a little too simple.

Genres: Mystery

Hardcover

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Paula Gosling is a US born crime writer. She has lived in the UK since the 1960s. Gosling started her writing career as a copy-writer and published her first novel, A Running Duck, in 1974. This won the John Creasey Award for the best first novel of the year and she has also received both the Gold Dagger for Monkey Puzzle in 1985. She is a past Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association.

Her novel A Running Duck, written in 1974 (also published as Fair Game), has been adapted twice into films, once as a Sylvester Stallone vehicle - Cobra and the second time as a film with Cindy Crawford entitled Fair Game.

Reviews

[Laura Steinert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, not great. The "witty patter" really dates it. It was written mid nineties but sounds like the dialogue was straight out of 1950s sitcoms. The slapstick action didn't help. I couldn't tell if it was happening in the US or Briton because of the strange syntax. Not great, not horrid but I did finish it--all but the last page.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a beautiful young woman starts to edit a manuscript that purports to reveal the secret behind a disappearance years earlier, she's threatened, the author is murdered, and at least one copy of the manuscript is stolen. Meanwhile, a dying gangster complains about his son's instability, a clumsy policeman is taken off one case and put on another, a ladylike librarian buys a piece of second-hand furniture...Clearly, there's a lot going on, some of it funny (check out the attempted kidnapping in the Piggly Wiggly) and some of it frightening, before--with the help of a surprisingly erudite homeless person--all is elucidated. A wonderful story by the much-underrated Gosling.

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed my way through this the first time I read it, and have continued to chuckle the times I've read it since
My favourite Paula Gosling book by far (followed by woman in red)

[orl3gh · Rating 1 out of 5]

The cover was probably the best and least confusing part of the book