Potomac Fever: A Novel - Hardcover

Horrock, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316354724 ISBN 13: 9780316354721

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 1999

Synopsis

Detective Cal Terrell and Sgt. Roberta Short of the Washington, D.C., police find that an apparently simple murder case has drawn attention and outright interference from some extremely powerful people, leading to cover-ups of real estate deals and illicit sex

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Cluttered and routine Washington-based police procedural, the second from husband-and-wife team of Diane Henry and Nicholas Horrock (Blood Red, Snow White,1992). The story takes off with a powerfully detailed account of the injuries suffered by Washington, D.C., Metro Homicide Lieutenant Cal Terrell, whos been beaten nearly to death by a team of masked assailants at his rustic horse-farm home. While emergency room staff fuss over his battered body, Terrell remembers, through a series of flashbacks, salient moments in his investigation of the murder of Mary Jeanne Turner, a 19-year-old restaurant hostess whose body, fished out of Chesapeake Bay, was disfigured by a B branded on her buttocks. Fortunately, none of the characters that follow, with the exception of Terrell's partner, the predictably beautiful and feisty Sergeant Roberta ``Bobbie'' Short, and his equally predictable bureaucratic back-pedaling police chief Nathaniel Bench, have the letter B in their names, and they aren't suspects. Then, while investigating a drive-by shooting in front of a Jamaican nightclub, Terrell and Short find evidence that what had seemed a random act of gang violence was, in fact, part of a plan to persuade the neighborhood's few remaining residents to sell their property to black realtor Virgil James, a good friend of Mayor Martin Cameron. James was not only seen squiring Turner around before she died, but was also assembling property so that wealthy power-broker Harry Moray, a good buddy of the Presidents, could turn D.C.'s slums into a sprawl of upscale condos. Before Terrell can nab Moray, though, Moray tries to bribe him to join his security force. Then Terrell's ex-wife Vivian, a gorgeous TV news reporter who never seems to be in front of a camera, blows back into his life, complaining about her dull drunk of a husband, a White House counsel who might be involved in a secret cover-up. . . . Tangled plotting is snarled even more by clumsy prose, stilted dialogue, and enough red herrings to stock a Georgetown deli. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

From the pseudonymous husband and wife team of Diane Henry and Nicholas Horrock (Blood Red, Snow White) comes a seamless collaboration that tingles with suspense, breathing new life into the clich?-ridden White House conspiracy plot. Homicide Detective Lt. Cal Terrell wakes up in the hospital unable to speak, but devotedly attended by his ex-wife, Vivian. As he fades in and out of consciousness, Cal relives the attack on his life, which is tied to the murder of Mary Jeanne Turner, the hostess of a posh D.C. restaurant, who was branded on her buttock with a letter "B" just before she died. Investigating the case with his voluptuous partner Sgt. Bobbie Short, Terrell soon finds links to D.C.'s black Republican mayor, Martin Cameron; a real estate development called Rivergate; Vivian's current husband, Edward St. Denis, who's a White House aide; and a shoot-out at the Reggae Club, which just happens to be located in a neighborhood slated to be torn down as part of the Rivergate project. When Terrell learns about a party on a boat called Potomac Fever, the White House connection falls into place, but there's nothing tired about the way Horrock lays the trail. The writing here is crisp and clear; the characters are sharply drawn and always believable, and the realistic dialogue has zing and heft. A clear picture of how Washington worksAthe way power and money and race keep colliding against each otherAis visible on every page. This is a stand-out effort: exciting, engrossing and impossible to put down.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0316354724
• ISBN 13: 9780316354721
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304