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Loretta Lawson #5
Full Stop
"A FEISTY AND ORIGINAL HEROINE."
--P.D. James
Loretta Lawson is already a little apprehensive about spending a hot, muggy weekend alone in New York City at her friend Toni's apartment. And it seems her fears are confirmed when she receives a series of mysterious and threatening phone calls. What's more, as she explores the exciting, unfamiliar city, she has the uneasy impression that someone is watching her, perhaps even following her. Is Loretta the target of these unnerving attentions or are they aimed at Toni?
Loretta begins to think that she cannot trust her own judgment; the one person who might lend a hand--her ex-husband, journalist John Tracey, also in New York on a story--has too many problems of his own to help. In the end, Loretta must face the terrifying events that unfold alone. . . .
"Ms. Smith is a literate writer who manages to both educate and to entertain."
--The New York Times Book Review
--P.D. James
Loretta Lawson is already a little apprehensive about spending a hot, muggy weekend alone in New York City at her friend Toni's apartment. And it seems her fears are confirmed when she receives a series of mysterious and threatening phone calls. What's more, as she explores the exciting, unfamiliar city, she has the uneasy impression that someone is watching her, perhaps even following her. Is Loretta the target of these unnerving attentions or are they aimed at Toni?
Loretta begins to think that she cannot trust her own judgment; the one person who might lend a hand--her ex-husband, journalist John Tracey, also in New York on a story--has too many problems of his own to help. In the end, Loretta must face the terrifying events that unfold alone. . . .
"Ms. Smith is a literate writer who manages to both educate and to entertain."
--The New York Times Book Review
- GenresMystery
262 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
4 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Joan Smith
19 books40 followersJoan Alison Smith is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN, but refused the award. Joan Smith is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 26, 2016
Set around 10 years after the first book of the Loretta Lawson series, the final story finds the English academic staying alone in a friend's apartment in New York.
There's no murder investigation in this book, it's about how Loretta deals with unwanted male attention, harassment and stalking. In spite of this, I enjoyed the story, especially scenes involving a pet dog that Loretta has to look after. As a stand-alone story, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but having followed the development of Loretta's character over the previous four books in the series, and having got to know her friends, it was a satisfying read in which there were references to the plots of previous stories and the tying up of a loose end.
There's no murder investigation in this book, it's about how Loretta deals with unwanted male attention, harassment and stalking. In spite of this, I enjoyed the story, especially scenes involving a pet dog that Loretta has to look after. As a stand-alone story, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but having followed the development of Loretta's character over the previous four books in the series, and having got to know her friends, it was a satisfying read in which there were references to the plots of previous stories and the tying up of a loose end.
May 28, 2021
This proved to be a major disappointment. I had enjoyed Joan Smith’s previous novels featuring the engaging Loretta Lawson, the earnest, feminist academic with an alarming penchant for finding herself caught up in murder cases, and consequently was looking forward to this one.
Written in the mid-1990s, it marked a bit of a departure from her earlier cases as Loretta is in America, having spent a year as visiting professor at a university in California (unspecified, but readily identifiable as UCLA, one of my own alma maters). As the novel opens, she has just arrived in New York, where she will be spending a few days flat sitting for a friend before departing back to the UK. Right from the opening of the book, she finds herself oppressed by New York. It is the height of summer and the city is unpleasantly hot, and seems relentlessly noisy. People’s tempers are ragged, and there is an irrepressible undercurrent of agitation. Once established in the friend’s flat, she tries to relax, but finds that she is soon beset by nuisance phone calls, that become increasingly disturbing. She also start to feel as if she is being watched as she wanders around the city, trying to take in some of the sights, and visit various galleries.
Smith builds the sense of tension effectively, and the reader can easily empathise with Loretta’s response to the growing sense of alarm. Unfortunately, the actual plot is not sufficiently strong to live up to this scenario setting. While her previous novels had been soundly constructed, with immensely plausible characters and storylines, this one relied too heavily on coincidence, flimsy conjecture and a host of characters with little hint of plausibility at all.
I see that this was Joan Smith’s last Loretta Lawson novel, which is a shame in some ways, although in other ways I might have preferred for her to have bowed out with the previous novel, rather than having it end with one that lets the series down.
Written in the mid-1990s, it marked a bit of a departure from her earlier cases as Loretta is in America, having spent a year as visiting professor at a university in California (unspecified, but readily identifiable as UCLA, one of my own alma maters). As the novel opens, she has just arrived in New York, where she will be spending a few days flat sitting for a friend before departing back to the UK. Right from the opening of the book, she finds herself oppressed by New York. It is the height of summer and the city is unpleasantly hot, and seems relentlessly noisy. People’s tempers are ragged, and there is an irrepressible undercurrent of agitation. Once established in the friend’s flat, she tries to relax, but finds that she is soon beset by nuisance phone calls, that become increasingly disturbing. She also start to feel as if she is being watched as she wanders around the city, trying to take in some of the sights, and visit various galleries.
Smith builds the sense of tension effectively, and the reader can easily empathise with Loretta’s response to the growing sense of alarm. Unfortunately, the actual plot is not sufficiently strong to live up to this scenario setting. While her previous novels had been soundly constructed, with immensely plausible characters and storylines, this one relied too heavily on coincidence, flimsy conjecture and a host of characters with little hint of plausibility at all.
I see that this was Joan Smith’s last Loretta Lawson novel, which is a shame in some ways, although in other ways I might have preferred for her to have bowed out with the previous novel, rather than having it end with one that lets the series down.
February 28, 2024
Amateur feminist sleuth Loretta Lawson undergoes some negative changes as the series progresses: in this, the 4th installment, she is a permanently disgruntled, judgmental, and vain iteration of the prim and proper Englishwoman stereotype. Her fatphobia points to a not-so exclusive feminism. If I were to count the adjectives in the text, I would be hard-pressed to find 10 positive ones over the first half of the book. The writing is fundamentally humourless. Take this, incidentally hilarious, straight-laced sentence: "She yawned, thinking how fond she was of [ex-husband] Tracey." (95)
There is an excellent analysis of Scrosese's approach to masculinity, however, which Loretta provides to a perplexed, less-than-knowledgeable, and - of course - big-boned and ungainly young female reporter. Quote to follow, it really is fantastic - which makes me think Smith's non-fiction is worth checking out.
It picks up for about 30 pages in the second half, around the 130 page mark, and Loretta becomes slightly likable, if only because she finds a novelist incredibly hot and proceeds to French-kiss him. She is even funny at times: at a party thrown by her agent, she tells a wildly popular author of a book on reincarnation that the public loves consolatory fiction. However, the scene also extends a pattern of Loretta being condescending to women, and respectful with men: the past lives quack's counterpoint is the hot male writer who is "very knowledgeable" about film. From all the 5 novels, this is the one that is feminist in name only. The book would certainly not pass the Bechdel test: all Loretta's conversations are, in one way or another, about men.
There is an excellent analysis of Scrosese's approach to masculinity, however, which Loretta provides to a perplexed, less-than-knowledgeable, and - of course - big-boned and ungainly young female reporter. Quote to follow, it really is fantastic - which makes me think Smith's non-fiction is worth checking out.
It picks up for about 30 pages in the second half, around the 130 page mark, and Loretta becomes slightly likable, if only because she finds a novelist incredibly hot and proceeds to French-kiss him. She is even funny at times: at a party thrown by her agent, she tells a wildly popular author of a book on reincarnation that the public loves consolatory fiction. However, the scene also extends a pattern of Loretta being condescending to women, and respectful with men: the past lives quack's counterpoint is the hot male writer who is "very knowledgeable" about film. From all the 5 novels, this is the one that is feminist in name only. The book would certainly not pass the Bechdel test: all Loretta's conversations are, in one way or another, about men.
November 21, 2019
The fifth and final Loretta Lawson novel with writer Joan Smith tying up all the loose ends dating back to a Masculine Ending. The book is set in New York where Loretta is spending time at the flat of a friend. Much of the plot deals with how uncomfortable she with her new surroundings and not help a series of obscene phone and a sense that she is being followed. Only her ex-husband John Tracey is on hand to help and even he is moving on with his life. Once again Smith attempts to make her character's actions very realistic but ultimately the conclussion is a little bit flat.
Want to read
November 11, 2008Full Stop by Joan Smith (1996)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews