Precipice - Hardcover

Savage, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316771600 ISBN 13: 9780316771603

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1994

Synopsis

Death, deceit, and sexual obsession are set against the sensuous backdrop of the Caribbean, as wealthy Kate Prescott hires a young woman to be her daughter's companion--and to execute her murderous agenda. A first novel. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Savage is the author of four suspense novels: Precipice, Valentine, The Inheritance, and Scavenger. He wrote two detective novels under the name T. J. Phillips, Dance of the Mongoose and Woman in the Dark. His short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and anthologies edited by Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, and Michael Connelly. His bestselling novel, Valentine, was made into a Warner Bros. film. In his younger days he was a professional actor, and he also wrote a Broadway show, Musical Chairs. Raised in the Virgin Islands, he lives in New York City, where he worked for many years at Murder Ink®, the world's first mystery bookstore. tomsavagebooks.com

From Kirkus Reviews

A cool, smart, and stylish first thriller--St. Thomas-set--of murder plot and counterplot that features a major twist in nearly every one of its 18 tightly woven chapters. After a preface set 20 years back, detailing the discovery by a Long Island postman of a dead woman and, clutching a knife and saying, ``I killed her,'' her bloodstained little girl, Savage moves to today's Caribbean. Right away, we read that ``The idea of murder, once formed in her mind, simply would not go away.'' In whose mind? Well, many readers will ignore the ellipses at the end of the first paragraph and, going on to read that ``Kay watched the girl from her chaise lounge...,'' will assume that the potential murderess is Kay--though it's soon revealed that Kay is the intended victim, and ``the girl'' the killer--just one tiny way in which Savage plays with prose-and-plot conventions to spin expectations around. The girl, a young beauty calling herself Diana Meissen (like most everyone here, she's not who she claims), gets herself hired as governess to Kay's daughter--and that night is kissing Kay's handsome, middle-aged husband, Adam: ``I wanted so much to call you....'' Are Diana and Adam planning to kill Kay? So it seems--especially when Adam commits a series of robbery-slayings in order to blame Kay's death on a homicidal thief. But how do these killings relate to identical ones ten and twenty years before? How do they tie in with the young man, allegedly a real- estate developer, who's spying on Diana? Or with the girl who held the knife years ago? Surprise piles upon surprise, logically, convincingly, until all secrets--revolving around an old family horror--are resolved in a climax that owes a debt to Greek tragedy. Not so much suspenseful as intellectually satisfying: a finely wrought, unusually clever literary debut--and a natural for the movies. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little Brown & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0316771600
• ISBN 13: 9780316771603
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290