Never Fear - Hardcover

Frost, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399153403 ISBN 13: 9780399153402

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2006

Synopsis

Seventeen years after an unidentified killer murdered three women in Los Angeles, detective Alex Delillo, whose own father had been the prime suspect, reopens the case as a means of solving the murder of the brother she never knew. By the author of Run the Risk. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Frost is a screenwriter whose credits include such TV classics as Twin Peaks and The X Files.

Reviews

Starred Review. Screenwriter Frost (Twin Peaks; The X-Files) brings back Lt. Alex Delillo, Pasadena supervisor of homicide, from his impressive debut, Run the Risk, for another pulse-pounding, complex thriller in the tradition of Peter Straub's serial killer whodunit Blue Rose series. Delillo's father, Thomas Manning, a second-rate actor, walked out of her life decades ago, but she's still haunted by vague, menacing childhood memories of him. Her family issues resurface when her previously unknown half-brother surfaces dead, an apparent suicide, on the very site of the unsolved Los Angeles River killings that claimed the lives of three young women years before. To make matters worse, her darkest suspicions about her father are aroused when she learns that Manning was questioned extensively by LAPD in connection with the murders. When more dead bodies turn up, including that of a police detective, Delillo comes to believe that her father is still alive and still lethal. Frost's combination of psychological depth, complex plotting and an evocative, arid Los Angeles setting will have fans of intelligent suspense counting the days until his next book. (July)
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*Starred Review* Pasadena, California, homicide detective Alex Delillo knew little of her father, Thomas Manning, beyond the roles he played as a Hollywood character actor. The Richard Widmark look-alike, who once appeared in a movie in which he was squashed by a cyclops, disappeared from Alex's life when she was just a young girl. Memories of Manning's violent nature (toward women, in particular) surface after the death of Alex's half brother, John. Could Manning be a murderer, or worse yet, a serial killer linked to the deaths of three women nearly two decades before? Alex throws heart and soul into the investigation of John's demise, enlisting help from fellow detective Dylan Harrison, whose good looks and kind nature make maintaining a strictly professional partnership tough. This is the second Alex Delillo mystery for Frost, whose crisp, prickly prose has been featured in episodes of The X-Files and Twin Peaks. Woven throughout the novel are images of the menacing blazes that threaten to level L.A.: "Driving into the canyons was like entering a city under siege. Burning embers were falling out of the sky. . . . The tops of palm trees would explode in flames as if hit by a bomb." Frost delivers a superlative scorcher with a cast of memorably eccentric characters (including a brilliant schizophrenic hell-bent on revenge) and a sinuous plot that crackles and pops. Fans of Robert Crais and Michael Connelly should check out this series. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399153403
• ISBN 13: 9780399153402
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304