FULL STOP (A LORETTA LAWSON MYSTERY) - Softcover

Joan Smith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099586312 ISBN 13: 9780099586319

Publisher: VINTAGE, 1996

Synopsis

"A FEISTY AND ORIGINAL HEROINE."

--P.D. James
Loretta Lawson is already a little apprehensive about spending a hot, muggy weekend alone in New York City at her friend Toni's apartment. And it seems her fears are confirmed when she receives a series of mysterious and threatening phone calls. What's more, as she explores the exciting, unfamiliar city, she has the uneasy impression that someone is watching her, perhaps even following her. Is Loretta the target of these unnerving attentions or are they aimed at Toni?
Loretta begins to think that she cannot trust her own judgment; the one person who might lend a hand--her ex-husband, journalist John Tracey, also in New York on a story--has too many problems of his own to help. In the end, Loretta must face the terrifying events that unfold alone. . . .
"Ms. Smith is a literate writer who manages to both educate and to entertain."

--The New York Times Book Review

About this title

About the Author

Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953, London) is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. Smith was educated at a state school before reading Latin at the University of Reading in the early 1970s. After a spell as a journalist in local radio in Manchester, she joined the staff of the Sunday Times in 1979 and stayed at the newspaper until 1984. She has had a regular column in the Guardian Weekend supplement, also freelancing for the newspaper and in recent years has contributed to The Independent, the Independent on Sunday, and the New Statesman. In her non-fiction Smith displays a commitment to atheism, feminism and republicanism; she has travelled extensively and this is reflected in her articles. In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN, but refused the award. She is a supporter of the political organisation, Republic and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In November 2011 she gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press and media standards following the telephone hacking practiced by the News of the World. She testified that she considered celebrities thought they could control press content if they put themselves into the public domain when, in reality the opposite was more likely. She repeated a claim that she has persistently adhered to in her writings that the press is misogynistic

From Kirkus Reviews

Loretta Lawson, the author's English lecturer-writer heroine (What Men Say, 1994, etc.), returns for a fifth outing, this time spending a weekend at the New York apartment of her friend Toni Stramiello--a stopover on her way back to Oxford after an extended stay in California. Trouble starts when Toni suddenly announces that she's going to Long Island for the weekend (to get married, it transpires), leaving Loretta to feed and walk Toni's ugly bulldog Honey, go alone to the theater, and receive a series of obscene phone calls at the apartment. Even her amiable contact with journalist ex-husband John Tracey turns out unhappily, their dinner date ending with Tracey nearly unconscious from a forbidden mix of prescription drugs and alcohol. Meanwhile, wherever Loretta goes- -from the theater to the Metropolitan Museum to lunch with her agent--she's certain someone is watching. A walk in the park with Honey produces an embarrassing encounter with a young man claiming to be Toni's son; back at the apartment, the obscene caller, now identified, is still on the line. A last day trip, on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, turns up a living reminder of a one-night stand in the distant past and ends with a fatal shooting--an absurd finish to a hodgepodge of a story. Loretta's twittery reaction to just about everything belies the sophisticated career-woman image, and the plot's incoherence results in little suspense. There's some merit in the flowery, minutely detailed descriptions of New York's highways, byways, art collections, etc., but there are livelier city guides around--and much livelier whodunits. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: VINTAGE
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0099586312
• ISBN 13: 9780099586319
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256