COLD CALL - Softcover

Pugh, Dianne G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671778420 ISBN 13: 9780671778422

Publisher: Pocket, 1994

Synopsis

Trading in her teaching job for a high-stakes career on Wall Street, Iris Thorne is upset when her new friend, Alley, is killed, and when the police declare the murder a random act of gang violence, Iris decides to investigate on her own. Reprint.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Investment counselor Iris Thorne--a teacher of the deaf who changed careers to run with the wolves in L.A.'s financial district- -offers a fascinating mix of the contemporary and the nostalgic as she tracks down the killer of her deaf, polio-stricken office mailman Alley. What's new here is the don't-tread-on-me attitude (vital to the Ice Princess's daily survival among her maliciously detailed male officemates) and the accessories (Adolfo, Anne Klein, Vuitton, a '72 Triumph); what's old is Iris's touching faith in Alley's essential goodness despite mounting evidence that he passed himself off as the firm's chief of Mexican operations in order to touch an in-house money-laundering account for $10 million, and her finally needing to be rescued by a bunch of men (though not the ones you might expect). Along the way Iris will rediscover her first love, John Somers, when the LAPD puts him in charge of the investigation (``You shaved your beard.'' ``About nine years ago'') and deal with an amazing number of plausibly smarmy, probably felonious males. A first novel that's breezily on target about sexual politics in the office, though it's a shame that only one of these guys actually gets tabbed for the killing. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Cliched characters and a predictable plot contribute to the formulaic flavor of this shallow first mystery. Alejandro "Alley" Munoz, a handicapped man who worked as a gofer at an L.A. banking firm, was often mocked by the firm's self-absorbed young execs; after Alley is murdered, his loyal defender, investment banker Iris Thorne, opens an envelope he'd recently given her. The key inside opens a safe-deposit box containing $200,000 and valuable stock certificates. Shortly thereafter, Iris overhears some shifty co-workers refer to a thwarted stock-market scam. Refusing to believe Alley was an embezzler, Iris hides her findings from the LAPD, even though the investigating detective turns out to be a former college beau. Brash and tough, with an MBA from UCLA, Iris is also depicted as a shopaholic with weaknesses for expensive trinkets, casual sex and makeup, characterizations that make her hard to take seriously even when she's being harassed by repugnant, chauvinistic colleagues. The action pulls together the transfers of millions of dollars, the demands of unforgiving loan sharks, another murder and near-death for Iris, who, after all the action winds down, can still log in 25 cold calls before noon.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0671778420
• ISBN 13: 9780671778422
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288