Lost Daughters by J.M. Redmann

Lost Daughters

J.M. Redmann

Lambda Award-winning author J. M. Redmann continues her ‘fine, hard-boiled tale-telling’ (Washington Post Book World) in a new novel featuring Micky Knight, ‘one of the most . . . complex female detectives in print today’ (San Francisco Chronicle). Micky Knight, a bayou-bred and out-of-the-closet New Orleans private investigator, takes on the cases of a widowed mother looking for her daughter and a tough gay boy hunting for his biological mother. These cases stir in Micky a desire to search for her own mother who abandoned her when she was a young girl. When a young woman patient is murdered at her lover’s clinic it seems to be just a bizarre coincidence. But then another woman, also a patient, is murdered, suggesting the frightening possibility that these events are more than just random chances. Even more alarming, the killer seems to know too much about the victims. As the killer circles ever closer to Micky –and the lost daughter she is trying to reconnect to her mother –the coincidences become a grisly reality: the one characteristic all the victims share is that they dare to love other women. Redmann once again keeps you at the edge of your seat. ‘A gutsy, fast-thinking PI in the Raymond Chandler tradition, Micky Knight is a detective mystery fans both gay and straight will want to see again and again.’ –Booklist

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From Publishers Weekly

With its plethora of subplots and varied characters, this fourth installment in Redmann’s Micky Knight series is an ambitious work. When Micky’s well-to-do physician girlfriend, Cordelia James, must visit the coroner’s office to identify a former lesbian patient who has been brutally murdered, the death appears to be an isolated incident. But matters take a twist after another lesbian patient turns up dead. Meanwhile, Micky is busy working on two missing-persons cases: in one, a mother looks for her estranged daughter; in the other, an HIV+ drag queen searches for his biological mother. Micky’s complicated investigations unearth numerous closeted skeletons. The death of two uncles brings a few revelations about Micky’s enigmatic past as well, provoking her to search for her own mother, who abandoned her nearly 20 years ago. Micky’s diggings inadvertently lead her straight into the boudoir of powerful, closeted society matron Suzanna Forquet and her old-moneyed husband, Henri. The novel is spiced with sarcastic humor, and Redmann carefully ties together her various plot lines, but even the neatness and the wit don’t quite relieve the book of the burden of its characters’ self-conscious struggle with Life Issues. Trodding a familiar path of family dysfunction, closet politics and unrequited love gone awry, this mystery ultimately winds up as an unappealing mix of lesbian group therapy and gumshoe kitsch. (July)

Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

New Orleans private investigator Michele ‘Micky’ Knight searches for a black woman’s rejected lesbian daughter, a dying drag queen’s natural mother, and her own long-ago ‘runaway’ mother. Beneath each investigation lies a complex web of character, history, and circumstance, a web made stickier by a serial murderer who stalks lesbians. Micky’s lover, doctor Cordelia, and a small host of medical, gay, and/or police-type friends and relatives also become involved with other remarkable denizens of the city. An admirable, tough PI with an eye for detail and the courage, finally, to confront her own fear. Recommended.

Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Details

ISBN	393040283
Genre	Mystery
Copyright Date	1999
Publication Date	14-Jun-99
Publisher	WW Norton
Format	Hardcover
No. of Pages	319
Series	Mickey Knight Mystery
# in Series	4
Language	English
Rating	NotRated
Paper Type	Electronic Format Available
BookID	7570