Somebody's Dead in Snellville - Hardcover

Sprinkle, Patricia Houck

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312078099 ISBN 13: 9780312078096

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1992

Synopsis

Mike Lindenthal, the successful young executive editor of New York's Beyond magazine, has his hands full when popular West Coast TV talk-show host Bangor Laudicek threatens a lawsuit against the magazine. Bangor claims to have been misquoted and portrayed as condoning drug use by a writer who has attacked him in print before. Retained by Beyond, Manhattan's top libel lawyer, Robert Struiker, flies out to Los Angeles with Mike in tow, determined to contain the damage and settle out of court. To this end he intends to give Bangor what he wants most - the errant writer's head on a platter.
Mike's loyalties to the magazine are tested when he finally meets the writer, beautiful, off-the-wall Trilla McGuffy, but his conflict of interest is dissolved when Bangor Laudicek falls nineteen floors to his death.
"She can say anything she wants about him now," Struiker sneers. "You can't libel the dead."
Unraveling the complex web of relationships connecting a cast of bizarre characters to Bangor, Mike and Struiker produce chilling answers that come with sudden, mind-shattering violence.

About this title

Reviews

Young widow Sheila Travis takes on rural murder in her fourth outing (after Murder on Peachtree Street ). Sheila is drawn into the tangled affairs of the extended Sims family by her neighbor, Sara Sims Tait, following a developer's offer of $10 million for the family farm, within commuting distance of Atlanta. The family matriarch, Grandma Sims, refuses to give up the farm or allow it to be used for any purpose but agriculture. When domineering and unpleasant Martha Sloan Tait, a granddaughter and Sara's mother, is found shot to death in her kitchen, the family looks for an outside killer, but Sheila suspects various money-hungry and unpleasant family members. After Grandma Sims's remaining son, retarded Billy, is found hanged, the Simses would just as soon blame him and quietly close the case. But Sheila, pushed by her formidable Aunt Mary Beaufort, hunts for a killer who is willing to pare down the family to increase an inheritance. Sprinkle has an acute ear for the regional voice and a good eye for depicting rural southern life, but her mystery loses momentum before its resolution.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sometime sleuth Sheila Travis (Murder on Peachtree Street, 1991, etc.), widowed 18 months and working in Atlanta, is a neighbor of wimpy Sara Sims Tait, young member of a multigenerational, mostly redneck, singularly unappealing clan. A rumor that the family farm, owned by tough old Grandma Sims, may be sold for millions appears to trigger a series of tragedies, starting with the murder of Sara's social-climbing mother Martha- -shot to death in her kitchen. Later, dim-witted Uncle Billy is found hanged in the barn, seemingly a suicide. Another death and lesser dire events are to follow before Sheila and her nosy Aunt Mary figure it all out. At that point, however, the weary reader--numbed by drearily complex family relationships, arch asides, and a relentless tide of domestic trivia--will be past caring. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312078099
• ISBN 13: 9780312078096
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 246