FrostLine - Hardcover

Scott, Justin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002256088 ISBN 13: 9780002256087

Publisher: Harper, 1997

Synopsis

Justin Scott is back with a new Ben Abbott mystery in the series that is rapidly gaining a major following. The likable former Wall Street player-turned real estate agent gets involved in another small-town drama of scandal and corruption that could have big-time consequences.
Newbury has a new resident: ex-diplomat Harry King – close confidant of Kissinger, ‘the man who brought Reagan and Deng to the table’, heavily involved in the organization of the Vietnam War – has bought Fox Trot, a beautiful estate at the top of the mountain in Newbury. Unfortunately, King’s idyll is spoilt by his neighbour: ex-Vietnam vet Richard Butler. A strip of Butler’s land runs straight into King’s like a knife, and he ain’t budging. Ben Abbott is brought in to mediate, but before he can help resolve the issues, Butler’s ex-con son Dickie turns up dead – blown to pieces by an explosion that also destroys King’s man-made lake. And Butler is arrested as an accessory. Suddenly, Ben is in over his head as he tries to clear Butler’s name – and gets much more than he ever bargained for…

About this title

About the Author

Justin Scott was born in New York City in 1944. He is the author of many successful novels, including HardScape, The Empty Eye of the Sea, Shipkiller, The Man Who Loved the Normandie, A Pride of Kings, Rampage and The Cossack’s Bride.

Review

“This novel is a delight! Those of us who've been clamouring for a new Ben Abbott will be ecstatic with his latest adventure among the folk of Newbury.” -Jeffery Deaver

Ask not what happened to Justin Scott's pungent and most promising mystery series about a Connecticut real estate broker named Ben Abbott: The third entry (after "HardScape" and "StoneDust") is finally with us, and we should be properly grateful.
Abbott is a terrific character: a real estate broker with backbone and ethics (both earned during an early, life-changing, three-year stretch in Leavenworth "for the sins of an overly meteoric yuppie career on Wall Street") but also with the basic need to make a living selling property in the increasingly hot market of Newbury. So when Harry King (a Kissinger figure minus the accent) demands his presence at his huge Fox Trot estate, Abbott hoofs on up to King's burgeoning megamansion, where two of Abbott's less savory cousins are working security at the gatehouse.
King wants Abbott not to sell his house but to help him enlarge it by buying an adjoining stretch of land belonging to deranged Vietnam War veteran Richard Butler, who not only spurns King's money but also--as a former explosives expert--has a habit of blowing things up when he becomes upset. Add to this the fact that Butler's equally violent and dysfunctional son, Dickie (another shady part of Abbott's past), has just been released from prison and you begin to see the shape of the exciting, often-hilarious kinds of things to come.

“This is a sophisticated, intelligent novel, among the best of American crime-writing.”-Sunday Telegraph

"A pleasant, effortless read. --Deadly Pleasures

"First published in the U.K. in 1997 and now extensively revised and updated, this assured third entry in Scott s Ben Abbott series (after HardScape and StoneDust) provides plenty of macho action.... a thoroughly good read." --Publishers Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0002256088
• ISBN 13: 9780002256087
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320