Review
Case #6 for Brady Coyne, lawyer to Boston's rich (Dead Meat, The Dutch Blue Error), now - in one of his lesser efforts - coming to the aid of real-estate millionaire Tom Baron, the folksy Republican candidate for governor. Though leery of Baron's politics, Brady is certainly sympathetic to his current crisis: Baron's teen-age son Buddy is missing - and a prime suspect in the murder of high-school girlfriend Alice Sylvester, a promiscuous cheerleader. So, while Baron's aides try to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible, Brady - an even more reluctant sleuth than usual - looks for Buddy, finds him, loses him, then finds him again. . .dead: apparently tortured and killed by two elusive, thuggish hit men. And the motive for both murders seems to be linked to Alice's drug use - and to a missing page of her high. school records. Before the unsurprising windup, Brady's lady-friend Sylvie is abused by the hit men (in graphic detail) and Brady himself survives a near-drowning ordeal. So the action, as always with Tapply, is steadily paced and shrewdly varied. But, though Coyne remains an agreeable narrator-hero, the plotting here is thinner and patchier than usual - with more interest in the sideline vignettes (e.g., Brady's drafting of a surrogate-motherhood contract) than the central story. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
In this, Attorney Brady Coyne's sixth case, when a teenager is murdered, the obvious suspect is her missing boyfriend, son of one of Coyne's clients. The father enlists Coyne's aid to find his son. Instead Brady uncovers who really runs the town's drug-ring - and nearly dies for it.
