The Steel Web - Hardcover

Tierney, Ronald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031206473X ISBN 13: 9780312064730

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1991

Synopsis

While burglarizing a house, two kids discover the body of an undercover cop, and everyone wants to pin the crime on the boys, except for P.I. Deets Shanahan, who is determined to uncover the truth

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

A new adventure for Indianapolis old-timer Deets Shanahan (The Stone Veil, 1989), the antithesis of trendy, who now sets out to prove that street-punks Leo and Billy did not bayonet to death Sam Puckett, a cop working undercover on a cocaine bust. With the sometime help of girlfriend Maureen and bar-crony Harry (who shakes a tail), Deets niggles away at magazine publisher/philanderer James Connell, who, for inexplicable reasons, is splashing stories of gang wars and killer punks across his pages, while at the same time prying into Sweethearts, a T&A bar with drug connections, whose manager is blown up in his car. Unraveling Puckett's drug connections is easy compared to uncovering his love life: Who was with him in Barbados? Several red herrings later, Leo and Billy are off the hook (thanks, in part, to a Puckett girlfriend) and Deets discovers the story behind the headlines. Fast-paced, wryly told, and evenly balanced--solid detection combined with warm, empathetic characterization. Besides, it's about time the Modern Maturity crowd had their own pinup. Who better than Deets? -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

In this new Deet Shanahan mystery, the gruff and lonely private investigator (who still lives with the furniture his ex-wife left behind 35 years before) is caught up in a case involving two 16-year-old boys arrested for the murder of an undercover cop. They had been on the scene and stole money from the dead man, but Shanahan and his much-younger girlfriend (whom he met in a massage parlor) don't believe the boys killed him. Time is short, because an ambitious, soon-to-be-up-for-reelection prosecutor wants the boys quickly convicted, to prove that Indianapolis, Ind., isn't New York or L.A. Before Shanahan discovers the murderer, he meets and matches wits with a wide assortment of characters: one of the richest and most powerful men in town, a young cub reporter, the owner of a strip joint with Mafia connections and his bimbo wife. With a smooth narrative style, vivid local color and sharply drawn characters, Tierney ( The Stone Veil ) offers a realistic portrait of an aging man and some satisfying sleuthing.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 031206473X
• ISBN 13: 9780312064730
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 179