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Narrated by Laurence Bouvard
Lynda La PlanteUnabridged — 14 hours, 55 minutes
Narrated by Laurence Bouvard
Lynda La PlanteUnabridged — 14 hours, 55 minutes
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...La Plante is an accomplished practitioner of old-school, tightly plotted mysery fiction....[W]hen... focused on the murder of a famous film producer/pornographer, she keeps her plot skittering through an agreeably stereotyped Hollywood...
—The New York Times Book Review
Featuring the sleazy Hollywood denizens that La Plante depicts so well, this follow-up to Cold Blood and Cold Shoulder, though enjoyable reading, suffers from a flurry of plot coincidences and an unsatisfying ending. Ex-cop Lorraine Page (last seen in Cold Blood, 1997) is fresh out of surgery and rehab when she gets the first call at her new detective agency. Tinseltown sex kitten Cindy Nathan has found the body of her porn filmmaker husband, Harry, in his Beverly Hills pool and asks Page to prove she didn't do it. All evidence points to Cindy, but Lorraine weeds through the good, the bad and the really nasty in the deceased's circle of ex-spouses and scammed partners, and digs up a private video collection that makes everyone a suspect in wanting him dead. A visit to the police station ignites romance between Page and the new captain, Jake Burton, but few leads on the case. Then an art scam surfaces and Page is hired to track Harry's missing art collection, the bulk of his estate. She visits Harry's surviving first wife, a reclusive feminist artist living on Long Island, and uncovers hot leads, more death and lethal danger that follows her back to the West coast. La Plante's plotting is ragged with loose ends and the novel's conclusion is as familiar as scrambled eggs. But her leads are two raw nerves in search of a synapse and La Plante makes romantic sparks fly between them like few writers can.
Author of Prime Suspect, the hit PBS "Mystery" series and novelization, La Plante follows up Cold Blood and its prequel Cold Shoulder with this flawed and undistinguished finale. After earning good money in Cold Blood, L.A. private investigator Lorraine Page tries to evade a troubled past and start life and work anew--with new clothes, a new apartment, a face lift, and a new case: the murder of moviemaker Harry Nathan. When Page gets romantically involved with Jake Burton, she dreams of forgetting her career and raising kids. But despite Page's treacly dreams, the past overtakes her. Nathan's two ex-wives are interestingly developed, which is not true of most of the other characters, especially Page. Although Page is credible as a detective, her private life plays like a soap opera. Despite some good plotting, the story suffers from loose ends and ambiguities. Not recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/98.]--Michelle Foyt, Fairfield P.L., CT
The mystery side of the novel satisfies...
A not-quite-porn producer dead in his swimming pool is the come-on for p.i. Lorraine Page's third and most tangled case. The evidence against Harry Nathan's child-wife Cindy is so strong - a history of shouted threats, her prints on the murder gun-that it's no wonder she phones Lorraine to ask for her help. But when Lorraine, that tough ex-cop-turned-alcoholic-turned-supershamus (Cold Blood, 1997, etc.), catches up with Cindy at the Santa Monica Police Department, Harry's widow insists she never called her: it must have been somebody else. That's only the first of many dead-end mysteries in the triple-decker investigation spawned by Harry's death.
Harry's initial dirty linen (two ex-wives, kinky pansexual tastes) pales before suggestions of blackmail fueled by his Watergate-sized archive of audio and videotapes. But beneath this second scummy layer there's still more dirt to dig, since the half-share in an art gallery Harry's passed on to his second wife, Kendall Nathan, is honeycombed with hints of wholesale fraud. Kendall swears she's Harry's victim, not co-conspirator; so does his ashen lawyer, Joel Feinstein; Harry's first wife, sculptress Sonjan Sorenson, smugly points out that she was in the Hamptons when Harry was killed; and Harry's old friend, aging queen Raymond Vallance, says he was out of the loop entirely. But Cindy, at least, is soon off the hook, thanks not to the tireless investigations of Lorraine's current troops (new secretary Rob Decker, marriage-minded new lover LAPD Chief of Detectives Lt. Jake Burton), but to a slight case of murder disguised as suicide, and soon it's open season on the remaining cast members.
All this juicy malfeasance would be morecompelling if (1) the most interesting characters didn't keep dying off, replaced by pale stand-ins who are much harder to care about; and (2) if La Plante didn't keep alternating danger and romance, action scenes and emotional confessions, promises of happy endings and portentous dramatic irony, in an economy that screams TV movie. Lorraine ends up solving the case while she's in a coma. Even the most cold-hearted readers may well empathize.
| BN ID: | 2940176493139 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bonnier Books UK |
| Publication date: | 11/28/2019 |
| Series: | Lorraine Page , #3 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Cindy Nathan wore dark glasses, a short powder-blue dress, white sandals, and a silver chain and padlock, fastened tightly, like a dog collar, around her neck: a gift from her loving spouse, Lorraine had no doubt. She didn't have a purse, just a small white-leather wallet.
"Please sit down. Sorry about my dog. He's supposed to be trained, but he hasn't got it quite right yet. Can I offer you tea or coffee?"
"No, nothing, thank you." She was perched on the edge of the chair.
"How are you?"
"Oh, I'm fine, get sick in the mornings, but they say the first few months are the worst," Cindy said. "Do you have children?"
Lorraine nodded. "Two daughters. They live with their father." She said it quickly, wanting to avoid a long conversation about births and pregnancies.
"Harry's other kid didn't live--this would have been his only child. It would be terrible if it was born in prison."
Lorraine looked at her fingers. "Do you think that's a possibility?"
"That's why I'm here. I need someone on my side."
"What about your lawyer?"
"Oh, I have a whole team of lawyers, L.A.'s best."
"And what do they say?"
"Oh, they seem pretty sure I did it. They don't say it, it's just how they ask me all these questions, over and over."
"Do you know what the evidence is against you, Mrs. Nathan?"
Cindy looked down at her toenails, painted electric blue. "Well, the gun was mine."
"Are your fingerprints on it?"
"Yes."
"And they have the gun?"
"The police found it in the bushes by the pool."
"Did you fire it, Mrs. Nathan?"
"Yes."
"But you've said you did not kill your husband."
"Yes, but you asked if I fired it and I did," Cindy said, with achildish sort of exactness. "A few times, just practicing. Once I fired it at Harry, but I missed and there were blanks in it anyway."
Lorraine picked up a pen and twisted it in her fingers. "Did you fire your gun on the day your husband was found dead?"
"No."
"Where did you leave it the last time you used it?"
"In our bedroom, on my side of the bed, in a silver box. Harry had guns all over the house--he was paranoid about security. He had a license, and he even had a gun in his car."
"Could I come out to the house, Mrs. Nathan?"
Cindy nodded. "Will you say that you're going to give me a massage? I don't want them to know. I don't think they would like it, you know, me hiring you without telling them."
"Who are you referring to, Mrs. Nathan?"
"Oh, the lawyers and the staff."
Lorraine leaned back in her chair. "Did you love your husband, Mrs. Nathan?"
"Yes."
"As his widow, are you his main beneficiary?"
"I get the house and the stock he had in the company, and his second wife, Kendall, gets his share in the gallery on Beverly Drive, though the will says that if there should be issue of our marriage, then the kid would be the main beneficiary and I get a lot less. The most valuable stuff is the art in the house--Harry was a collector. Feinstein says it's mine as part of the contents of the house, but Kendall's got some attorney to write claiming she and Harry agreed to split it so her half wasn't his to leave. There's something about Sonja too, but Feinstein says it won't add up to more than a few mementoes. It's all very complicated . . . ' Her voice trailed off.
"I'll come and see you tomorrow, all right?"
Cindy nodded, then opened her wallet. "You gave me your card, so I got the check all ready. All you got to do is fill in the amount. I don't know how much you charge, but I want you to look after me, exclusive, so that will be extra, and I'll pay extra because I don't want you to tell anybody that you're working for me. If it gets out, I'll deny it, and I'll get one of my fancy lawyers to sue you. Do you have client confidentiality?"
"Of course."
Decker ushered Cindy Nathan out of the office and into the elevator, while Lorraine remained at her desk, staring at the looped, childish writing. She had suggested Cindy engage her on a weekly basis, and said it would be three hundred dollars a day plus expenses.
Cindy had counted on her fingers, then leaned over to use Lorraine's felt-tipped pen. "I'm going to pay you five thousand dollars a week, and I want you for a month to start with. Then, if everything works out all right for me, I won't need you anymore."
When Decker returned, Lorraine held up the check between her fingers. He took it and looked stunned.
"Shit! Twenty grand! What in God's name do you have to do for that?"
Lorraine perched on the side of the desk. "Long time ago, one of the boys arrested this old guy for passing dud checks. When he was questioned he shrugged his shoulders and . . . he was crazy. He'd found the checkbook in a supermarket."
"I don't follow. What's that got to do with Cindy Nathan?"
"I think she's crazy--the elevator's certainly not quite going to the top floor. I wouldn't be surprised if that check bounced. On the other hand, she's a wealthy widow."
Decker chuckled. "Well, hell, let's bank it first thing in the morning, and if she's out to lunch we're laughing."
Lorraine clicked her fingers to Tiger. "Yeah, you go ahead and do that. Oh, that phone call Cindy denies making." Decker nodded. He still felt awful about the recording.
"Cindy has quite a high-pitched voice. If she got hysterical, like she'd just shot her husband, it's likely her voice would go up a notch. Whoever made that call, if my memory serves me well, had quite a deep, almost throaty smoker's voice." She gave him that cockeyed, smug smile. He said nothing.
Lorraine still hovered at the doorway. "Did Mrs. Nathan come with a chauffeur?"
"I have no idea," Decker said. As the door closed behind her he shut his eyes, tried to remember the voice. Had it been deep, throaty as she had just said? He could not remember.
According to the doorman in the lobby, Cindy Nathan had walked into the building. He had seen no driver, and she had not left keys for the valet-parking facility. She had asked him which floor Page Investigations was on, and then used the intercom phone to the office. "I'm sorry if I did anything wrong," the doorman said apologetically.
"You didn't," Lorraine replied as she left, with Tiger straining at the leash. But she knew intuitively that something was wrong. Nothing quite added up. She felt good, though, and she was twenty thousand dollars better off. Page Investigations was up and rolling.
