Dead Letter

by Jane Waterhouse

Hard-charging true crime writer Garner Quinn, a character the San Francisco Chronicle calls "irrespressible & hard to resist," returns in her third thrilling adventure.

An obsessed fan is sending threatening letters to Quinn at her remote, New Jersey shore estate, where she lives with her daughter and elderly housekeeper, and stalking her movements. Quinn hires security expert Reed Corbin to protect her and ferret out the identity of the increasingly hostile fan. But things are much more complicated and terrifying than they seem...and staying safe, and discovering the truth, will take Quinn all the way to Paris and back... and to the brink of certain death.

Praise for Jane Waterhouse's Garner Quinn

"Her prose flows like molten silver. The characters are indelible and the novel is haunting and broodingly suspenseful." Cleveland Plain-Dealer

"Quinn again makes a compelling, three-dimensional protagonist, and the crime-solving is first-rate," Chicago Tribune

"Riveting. Waterhouse writes with breath-taking vitality," Kirkus Reviews

293 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 2, 2020

About the author

Jane Waterhouse is a scriptwriter, award-winning playwright and the author of four novels, including the critically acclaimed Garner Quinn thrillers.

Reviews

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve discovered Jane Waterhouse through Brash books and their dedication to publish the finest thrillers. This is the third book I’ve read by the author, seemingly the conclusion to her Garner Quinn trilogy and over the years it appears I’ve come to appreciate her writing more and more. Maybe I’ve just read entirely too many of these popular modern female thrillers lately and the difference is refreshing. Back in the day, before the genre reached its levels of current mega popularity, this probably didn’t get the attention it deserved, but it is a female authored female driven thriller and it does follow some of the same prerequisites. And abandons some others. I liked the results. Garner Quinn, in her third outing, finds herself semiretired, in between projects (she is a very popular true crime author) and still devastated romantically, missing her sexy sculptor, Dane Blackmoor. She also finds herself with a stalker. A creepy creepy stalker. Alarmed, she hires the best security company around, an outfit led by a man named Reed, who likes order, acronyms and…Garner. Together they search for the stalker and tentatively navigate towards a personal romantic connection and then a tragedy strikes. Very explosive and right at 50%. A very effective way to pivot the narrative. And Garner finds herself involved in something much darker than being stalked, something with far reaching consequences for a lot of people, it’s a crime and a mystery she simply can’t leave unsolved. Even if she has to use herself as a bait. Even if she has to confront her great Dane once again. And so off she goes…being Garner. And on a personal level, there’s a bunch of things to contend with, from a nuisance of an ex, to a 16 year old daughter, to Mercedes, Cilda’s daughter, who is now a tv personality. Garner and Mercedes have a fascinatingly contentious yet caring relationship, very sisterly in a way, in fact in a way they are sisters, they just can’t get past the powr imbalance of their connection. The thing is…Cilda, a black woman, left her kids behind to come and take care of Garner (wealthy white girl), practically raised Garner and continued to live with and take care of Garner long after she no longer financially need to. Understandably her biological daughter (constantly disparaged by her mother for not having things like a car or a man, despite the fact that she is actually doing very well for herself in NYC and seems to need neither) might take some umbrage there. There are some interesting racial dynamics there, the Cilda/Garner thing alone has some serious Gone with the Wild undertones, but then again race has always been a subject of contention is the US, the author mentions in her afterword how (sadly) things haven’t really changed all that much socially in the years since the book was published originally. In fact, technology appears to be the main thing that did, technology and fashion, maybe. People remained the same, so the book doesn’t read especially dated. It reads well, it’s dynamic and interesting and character driven for optimal engagement and it all just really works well, even the cheesy fairy tale ending. Plus it’s a good vacation book, it takes you from (personally beloved) Jersey Shore to the City of Lights and back. Very nice. So yeah, I enjoyed this book very much, it was a quick and fun read. Recommended.