True Crime: A Novel - Hardcover

The main character of this outstanding, more than just a mystery, novel is Tom Heller Jr., who makes a plush living writing true crime books. When his father, "Big Tom," is murdered, Tom Jr. leaves the comforts of life and family in Rome to return to Baltimore. The murders of the father and son of his wealthy college girlfriend soon seem more than coincidental to Tom, as he launches his own investigation into the crimes. Delving into his past in Baltimore's poorest sections, Tom must confront feelings he thought long buried. The more Tom learns about the past and about the way the important people in his life view him, the more uncomfortable he becomes with the ambiguities of his profession and with his opinion of himself. Mewshaw has captured superbly one man's struggle to come to terms with both past and present; that he provides also an absorbing puzzle merely increases the readability of what must be one of the year's best mysteries. Highly recommended.
- Dean James, Houston Acad. of Medicine/Texas Medical Ctr. Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An accomplished writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Mewshaw ( Playing Away ) again displays his storytelling talent in this tale about Thomas Heller Jr. a writer of "true crime" who specializes in murders that occur within families. A call from his brother, Buck, summons Tom from Italy to his hometown near Baltimore-- their father, an alcoholic whom Tom both loved and feared, has been hospitalized, the victim of a gunshot wound. While reminiscing in the old family home, Tom receives the dreaded call that his father has died. Turning his investigative skills to uncovering the identity and motive of the murderer, Tom becomes involved in another, possibly related murder case: the son and father of a woman he once loved are found dead, the woman herself suspected of the crimes. The result is a splendidly written, expertly plotted suspense thriller--alternately deeply touching and riotously funny, always a delight.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.