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Feminist Mystery Reviews
AN AMERICAN KILLING
Mary-Ann Tyrone Smith
Henry Holt, Sep 1998, $23.00, 360 pp.
ASIN: 0-8050-570271
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Denise Burke has reached the pinnacle of the successful DC woman.
She is married to Nick, an individual who is Clinton's domestic
affairs advisor (allegedly the word affair in his title means the
entire country and is not just limited to young females), making
him a member of the inner sanctum. Denise is having an affair of
her own with Congressman Owen Hall. On top of the success of her
personal life, Denise is the best selling author of true crime books.
It is the latter two items that got Congressman Hall to ask Denise
to investigate the triple murder in his hometown of New Caxton,
Rhode Island so that she could ultimately write the true accounting.
However, before she can begin her inquiries, Hall is found dead
at a hooker's place with a Chinese cord sticking up his butt. Denise
begins to receive pressure to drop her New England research and
the subsequent book it should produce or become the next victim
of an individual who prefers that Eddie Baines remain the convicted
felon. AN AMERICAN KILLING is a witty look into high political society
and its link to small town New England. The first person account
moves briskly forward due to the cynical quips of Denise (that sounds
like most voters today). The who-done-it is an interesting puzzle,
but the novel gets its freshness from the interrelationships of
the well designed characters. Though the conclusion is a grand canyon
of a stretch, readers will enjoy this amateur sleuth cum political
thriller, which humorously brings America into a nineties perspective.
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