Casting for Murder (A Thomas Dunne Book) - Hardcover

Dunham, Mikel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312069243 ISBN 13: 9780312069247

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1992

Synopsis

Shocked by the murder of one of her clients on the steps of the Venice Opera House, art dealer Rhea Buerklin sets out to find the truth, with the help of N.Y.P.D. Lieutenant John Tennyson

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Reviews

This energetic, often enthralling murder mystery set in the worlds of international art and high finance succeeds despite patches of pretentious dialogue and arch tone. New York art dealer Rhea Buerklin, first encountered in Stilled Life , is again drawn into violence when one of her top painters, Jodie Rivers, an unpleasant and disliked womanizer, is found strangled on the steps of the opera house of Venice. Despite warnings from her lover, Lt. John Tennyson of the NYPD, Rhea flies to Italy at the behest of Jodie's immensely wealthy estranged father, whom Jodie--who had betrayed almost everyone he knew in the weeks before his death--had been sponging off of, staying at the famed Gritti Palace hotel. Rhea steps up her investigation after the bullet-ridden body of model Lisa Morris, Jodie's current lover and the former girlfriend of his anxiety-ridden brother Henry, is discovered. Dunham develops an exotic setting and leavens his plot with interesting tidbits on global finance and intercontinental romance--ingredients sure to please readers who relish a vocabulary that includes such words as plangent , subvention and catechesis.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Soho gallery owner Rhea Buerklin (Stilled Life, 1988) zips over to Venice, at the invitation of self-made tycoon Verle Rivers, to discuss the disposition of his murdered son's art. While there, she not only pries into the loathsome Jodie's strangulation, but into the murder of his black model girlfriend Lisa--his brother Henry's former lover. Also milling about are: Verle's officious right-hand man, Wallace Darlington; his much younger Harvard MBA wife Babs; her two bodyguards; and, in codeine-induced visions seen only by Henry, the dead Jodie, the dead Lisa, and Henry's dead mom. Suave, sophisticated Venice cop Lago shares clues (and more) with Rhea, while her stateside beau, New York cop John Tennyson, digs into the suspects' finances, wills, careers, etc. Drugs, blackmail, revenge, and sibling rivalry are all motives Rhea explores as she sprints about Venice trying to make sense of it all. Finally unable legally to prove whodunit, Rhea is horrified to learn of one suspect's explosive solution to dealing with the guilty. Curiously little artfulness here, although Venice manages to strut its stuff nicely midst these cardboard tourist interlopers. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312069243
• ISBN 13: 9780312069247
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266