Murder by the Book
A Helen Black Mystery
Pat Welch
Then Helen lands her first important case. Her client is wealthy lesbian Donna Forsythe, whose lover is a prime suspect in the death of an employee in a bank vault.
One of eight bank employees has to be guilty. But which one and why? Why was only $200 taken from the vault? The Christmas tree in the bank lobby seems significant to the crime but why? What hidden association did the guilty employee have with the murdered man? And what about Ben, the derelict? Can Helen decipher from his gibberish what he saw on the night of the murder?
Suddenly the roster of suspects is reduced by one and Helen herself is attacked. Whodunnit? And what about Helen’s increasingly prickly relationship with Freida?
Pat Welch’s first novel.
——
From Publishers Weekly
After a promising beginning, Welch’s first novel loses momentum in a plot more cluttered than challenging. The book introduces PI Helen Black, a lesbian who lives in California, and, having only recently left the police force, has cop friends who can help her out. Comparisons with Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone are inescapable and unfortunate; Welch is not in Grafton’s league. Here, a woman prominent in the Bay Area gay community asks Black to investigate a bank robbery that left two people dead: the night watchman and a robber. Circumstantial evidence points to the criminal involvement of the client’s lover, Marita Spicer, a teller at the bank: the slain thief, a small-time dealer in drugs and porn, had helped jail Marita’s / brother, a former dealer–and the murder weapon was found behind her desk. As Black delves into the robber’s sordid past, she discovers that Marita was not the only employee to have known him. The sleuth’s own relationshipwith her lover, Frieda, presents another side of her personality but is incidental to the mystery.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Private investigator Helen Black, on her first big case, scours the San Francisco Bay area for clues relating to a Yuletide bank robbery and murder, all the while juggling her relationship with lover Frieda. Helen focuses on the bank employees: a lesbian (whose lover hired Helen) with a drug-dealer brother; a disgruntled auditor with an alcoholic wife; and others. First novelist Welch outlines her characters well, forwards the story without too much waffling, and presents the lesbian lifestyle with no apology. Despite a few bumps in the prose, this should do fine.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Details
| ISBN | 941483592 |
| Genre | Mystery |
| Copyright Date | 1990 |
| Publication Date | Feb-90 |
| Publisher | Naiad Press |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 240 |
| Series | Helen Black Mystery |
| # in Series | 1 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| BookID | 8533 |
