What do you think?
Rate this book
Freddie O'Neal Mystery #7
Dead Man's Hand
Inadvertently killing the mugger who attacked her and injured her boyfriend, Freddie soothes her guilt by using her P.I. skills to help a member of the mugger's family and she is soon involved in a murder case
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 7, 2018
Sometimes, it takes starting to read the next book before being able to figure out what was bothering you about the last one. In this case, I've started a Patricia Cornwell opus set during Christmas. And realized that this one was also set during Christmas. A beautiful setting for a certain type of mystery, because in most places it is cold, it is dark, and any bit of loneliness a character might feel is heightened by family dysfunction, over happy music, and (since it is the 90s) the horrors of the mall.
Cornwell nails the dark night of the soul for her character. Our author is going for this, I guess, in a Reno setting that should give endless opportunity for that kind of thing. But her would-be Kinsey Milhorne has the problems of a soap opera star and the inner life of Joe Friday on Quaaludes. Too bad, because the plot is pretty good. Maybe this would have worked as a screenplay that would have allowed an actress to inhabit a character who — supposedly — is on an emotional razor’s edge, while trying to deal with a boyfriend who was shot in front of her, cats that need feeding, extended family issues, and a bunch of wack survivalist sorts who are ultra impressed she blew away a Hispanic robber who had just shot the boyfriend in the parking lot at the mall.
But, it’s not a movie. It’s just the last book in a series I won’t seek out. Nor would I seek out this private eye. At the very end, it's the coppers that actually solve the crime.
Cornwell nails the dark night of the soul for her character. Our author is going for this, I guess, in a Reno setting that should give endless opportunity for that kind of thing. But her would-be Kinsey Milhorne has the problems of a soap opera star and the inner life of Joe Friday on Quaaludes. Too bad, because the plot is pretty good. Maybe this would have worked as a screenplay that would have allowed an actress to inhabit a character who — supposedly — is on an emotional razor’s edge, while trying to deal with a boyfriend who was shot in front of her, cats that need feeding, extended family issues, and a bunch of wack survivalist sorts who are ultra impressed she blew away a Hispanic robber who had just shot the boyfriend in the parking lot at the mall.
But, it’s not a movie. It’s just the last book in a series I won’t seek out. Nor would I seek out this private eye. At the very end, it's the coppers that actually solve the crime.
December 3, 2021
It’s very interesting to me that I can thoroughly enjoy one book or series by an author but not another. Disappointed there won’t be more of these. I like Freddie.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews