A Dark and Deadly Deception

by Eleanor Taylor Bland

Overview

Chicago detective Marti MacAlister has her work cut out for her these days. First, during the filming of a big Hollywood movie on location in Lincoln Prairie, the body of one of the film's stars turns up dead, along the shores of the Des Plaines River. Then, the skeletal remains of another gunshot victim turn up in a hundred year old building that is being renovated. The closer Marti comes to piecing the clues of each case, the closer they come to understanding how the two cases are connected. But the longer it takes, the more dangerous the killer becomes.

This next book in Eleanor Taylor Bland's acclaimed series is a captivating story that will engage both fans and new readers with its suspense and wit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429901703
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/01/2007
Series:	Marti MacAlister Mysteries , #13
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	650 KB

About the Author

Eleanor Taylor Bland is the author of twelve previous Marti MacAlister mysteries. She lives in Waukegan, Illinois.

Eleanor Taylor Bland is the author of the Marti MacAlister Mysteries, including Windy City Dying, Fatal Remains, A Cold and Silent Dying, and A Dark and Deadly Deception. She lives in Waukegan, Illinois.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Friday, March 19---Lincoln Prairie

A loud snap awakened him. Wood scraped against brick. Another branch from the elms planted close to the house must have broken. Thomas Newsome pushed the heavy blanket aside and, mindful of the stiffness in his hips and knees, pushed himself up from the armchair. Leaning on his cane, he shuffled to the window and pulled back the heavy velvet curtain. The wind had picked up. Snow, large flakes falling thick and fast, whipped past the leaded glass, moving horizontally. Winter, the stripping away of things past, a time for the seed to lie fallow within the frozen earth: his favorite time of year. Like the animals that slept through blizzards, and cold, and rivers dammed with ice, he, too, chose to hibernate, staying inside with a fire in the hearth but wakeful---watching and waiting, for what he didn't know.

Loath to turn away from the storm that raged outside, he stood there until the cold from bare glass and the chill from a draft began to permeate his bones, stiffening his joints, making his back ache. He sighed. Today was his birthday. He was seventy-nine years old. Perhaps there wouldn't be many more winters. Perhaps soon, he would lie beneath the snow awaiting resurrection. He turned from the window and went to a tall, narrow cupboard. He touched the dark wood, older than he was, and scarred. The veins on the back of his hands stood out like cords. He rubbed the knots in the wood with fingers that had never known a callus.

There were no tremors in his hand now. Was it the medication? Or . . . the Theotokos---Mother, Madonna, Birth-Giver of God. He opened the cabinet, looked at the icon placed at eye level.

The icon was small, five inches by eight. A border of blue-and-red paint that might once have been bright was now dull and scarred. Bare wood was exposed where the paint had chipped or peeled. He thought the light surrounding the Madonna's face and head must have been gold. Now it was a mottled brown-green. Her face was the color of old parchment. Her dress made him think of a brown wool coat he had worn as a boy.

"Mama . . . (Romanian here)" he whispered. It was one of the few Romanian words he knew. "Mother."

She was a tormented mother, looking toward some distant place far beyond his line of vision. There was no Christ child in her arms to love, no crucified Christ to mourn. She leaned forward, lap empty, arms empty. Her hand palms up, a silent plea or a mother's prayer? The anguish in her eyes was too deep for him to fathom or to even begin to understand. "What do you see, Mama? (Romanian.)" Again he asked that question, again the answer came, "I see forever."

Copyright © 2005 by Eleanor Taylor Bland

Editorial Reviews

Unspoken fears, guilty secrets and divisions between rich and poor serve as the unsettling backdrop for Bland's well-crafted 13th Marti MacAlister mystery (after 2004's A Cold and Silent Dying), set in Lincoln Prairie, Ill. When the body of Savannah Payne-Jones, a 43-year-old black actress and known gambler, washes up on the shore of the Des Plaines River, Marti and her detective partner, Matthew "Vik" Jessenovik, investigate. Marti and Vik are also under pressure to identify the skeleton of a 28-year-old mixed-race male, apparently shot in the chest and sealed in the closet of an old building for more than 50 years. To make matters worse, Marti and Vik must each cope with the illnesses of their respective spouses. Meanwhile, several elderly residents of Lincoln Prairie guard family secrets that could provide important clues to solving the two murders. Bland's deft use of flashbacks not only builds suspense but adds complexity to her characters. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The cops in Lincoln Prairie, Ill., find a fresh and literal addition to the skeletons in a murdered actress's closet. When the bones of a youngish male are discovered in an old building, with a bullet in the skull, no one can say who he was, how long he's been there, how he got there or why no one ever missed him. The skeleton has black Detective Marti MacAlister and her white partner Vik Jessenovik scratching their heads. Meanwhile, bit player Savannah Payne-Jones's bid for Hollywood glory ends when she's fished out of the Des Plaines River, a bullet in her skull as well. Though her part in a locally filmed movie had been small, a producer tells Marti that "she could act." She could also keep dangerous secrets, even from a loving daughter. On the home front, Marti's husband Ben may have prostate cancer-the sort of complication that can put a murder investigation into diminished perspective. Still, Marti's a stone professional, and professionals have to compartmentalize. So it's back to a case whose accumulating evidence indicates that the old bones may be connected to the fresh bones. Part police procedural, part domestic drama. But after 13 entries (A Cold and Silent Dying, 2004, etc.), the formula seems a bit, well, bland. Agent: Ted Chichak/Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews