Sugar Skull - Softcover

Hamilton, Denise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752864807 ISBN 13: 9780752864808

Publisher: Orion (An Imprint of the Orion, 2005

Synopsis

The body count this weekend is twenty-eight - and rising fast. Across the city, people are killing each other in gruesome ways. And Eve Diamond is writing it all down in her routine roundup story for the LA Ties. Then a distraught man bursts into the newsroom complaining about the police's apathy over the disappearance of his runaway daughter. To complicate matters, Eve is assigned to cover a potentially huge story involving a mayoral candidate and his Italian wife, Venus - whose body was discovered floating naked in her pool. Who killed Venus? And what is the significance of the sugar skulls - little confections for the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday - that Eve keeps seeing everywhere? Eve tries to understand how vice, greed and the drive for power can transcend even the most entrenched of class divides. And with her own life ultimately on the line, she must beat incredible odds to derail the murder conviction of the wrong person.

About this title

Review

You can spot Denise Hamilton's journalistic background in the inquisitive, meticulous way she plumbs the economic and ethnic strata of Los Angeles, the setting of her second Eve Diamond mystery, Sugar Skull. As in her previous book, The Jasmine Trade, which dealt with Asian gangsters and undersupervised teens susceptible to criminal influence, Sugar Skull contrasts seemingly disparate, yet intersecting social realms as it illuminates a metropolis in transition.

"All over town, people were dying violently," observes L.A. Times reporter Diamond at this tale's start. In other words, it's a typical weekend in California's largest city, with most of the deceased barely earning a mention in print. But Isabel Chevalier is different. A 15-year-old prep-school student, she's taken to slumming with runaway street kids, so when she disappears suddenly, her worried father seeks Diamond's help. Too late: Isabel is found murdered in an abandoned building. Sniffing a good story, Diamond tracks down the homeless youths who knew Isabel best, including the feral but oddly magnetic Finch "Mad Dog" Marino and an abused girl called Scout, who revs up the reporter's maternal instincts. At the same time, Diamond has another scoop on the hook, involving the suspicious demise of a mayoral candidate's "super-socialite" wife, who--in hypocritical disregard of her hubby's "family values" platform--has been cavorting with another man. Hamilton's smoothly paced yarn sends Eve from a riverside transvestite camp to Latino nightclubs to the hyper-competitive arena of her newsroom, yet leaves her time (and breath) enough to tryst with a somber Hispanic music promoter amid L.A.'s Day of the Dead festivities. Although readers may cringe at this novel's trite portrayals of spin-mad politicians, Diamond's rough-cut charm and perspicacity, plus Hamilton's thoughtful focus on race and homelessness, make Sugar Skull a sweet read. --J. Kingston Pierce

About the Author

Denise Hamilton is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wired and Cosmopolitan. Her debut novel - 'The Jasmine Trade' - was shortlisted for the Creasey Dagger for Best First Crime Novel, and she has gone on to receive nominations for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion (An Imprint of the Orion
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0752864807
• ISBN 13: 9780752864808
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352