Past Tense: A Brady Coyne Novel - Softcover

Tapply, William G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312995512 ISBN 13: 9780312995515

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2004

Synopsis

When Boston lawyer Brady Coyne takes his girlfriend Evie up to Cape Cod for a romantic weekend getaway, the last thing he expects to find in the driveway of their secluded cottage is the body of her murdered ex.

But when police declare her a chief suspect in the murder, Evie disappears without a trace, leaving Brady to face skeptical small-town cops. Watched at every turn, he goes looking for his girl, knowing he has to find the real killer if he ever hopes to clear Evie's name and save his own reputation.

More corpses surface as Brady races against the clock to find the truth, taking him closer and closer to a deadly secret from the past-and a twisted killer...

About this title

Review

Penzler Pick, November 2001: William Tapply's Brady Coyne novels have long delivered meticulous plots and a strong moral sense, and Past Tense, the series' 18th entry, lives up to that solid standard. (Having for a time been Tapply's publisher, I speak both as a fan and as one familiar with his professionalism.)

Coyne, a Boston attorney in private practice with a penchant for good-Samaritan trouble-shooting, is one of those mystery heroes in whom decency is perhaps the paramount characteristic. Liked equally by men and women, Brady usually manages to keep a level head when bad things start to happen, but always in a believable way. He sometimes gets things wrong, but that's okay because he'll usually find a way to sort them out.

A steady intelligence is always present, and the reader increasingly appreciates the carefulness with which his creator regards the human condition: the relationships between men and women, parents and children, workers and their colleagues, the guilty and the innocent. Betrayal, above all, is something he seems to have made a special area of study.

Past Tense opens as Brady and his current lady friend, Evie Banyon, are headed off to a Cape Cod rental for a long weekend's getaway. At a local seafood shanty, after a satisfying lobster feast, their idyll suddenly is shattered by an intrusion from Evie's past. Even after she has hauled off and slapped the insolent stranger staring at her from the bar (a man she accuses of having followed her there, much to Brady's confused astonishment), Brady doesn't expect to discover the fellow dead outside their cottage the next morning.

The question soon becomes not "Who was the late Larry Scott?" but "Who is Evelyn Banyon?" This is a little too close to home as far as Brady is concerned, and it only gets worse when Evie disappears, seeming not to want Brady to find her. The answers to the baffling turn of events lie in Evie's past--and in Brady's desire to remain part of her future. --Otto Penzler

From the Back Cover

An Unexpected Visitor
When Boston lawyer Brady Coyne takes his girlfriend Evie up to Cape Cod for a romantic weekend getaway, the last thing he expects to find in the driveway of their secluded cottage is the body of her murdered ex.

A Bizarre Disappearance
But when police declare her a chief suspect in the murder, Evie disappears without a trace, leaving Brady to face skeptical small-town cops. Watched at every turn, he goes looking for his girl, knowing he has to find the real killer if he ever hopes to clear Evie's name and save his own reputation.

A Dark Secret
More corpses surface as Brady races against the clock to find the truth, taking him closer and closer to a deadly secret from the past-and a twisted killer...

"If you haven't made a pilgrimage [to read Tapply] lately, Past Tense is a fine place to plunge back in. There's a wonderfully sexy woman...named Evie with a past that would make Ross Macdonald drool; a Cape Cod setting so richly evoked you can taste the shepherd's pie in the local diner; and above all, Tapply's always-wise, never-cynical hero." -Chicago Tribune

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0312995512
• ISBN 13: 9780312995515
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 292