The Red Corvette - Softcover

Reid, Robert Sims

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0881849901 ISBN 13: 9780881849905

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1993

Synopsis

This crime novel features retired Montana detective Leo Banks. When Leo's ex-lover begs him to return to a small town in Southern Illinois to investigate the death of her husband, he finds himself having to solve a 50-year-old crime before he can identify the killer.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Old murder, old men and a sleepy midwestern town whose French name suggests deep-rooted evil frame Reid's ( Big Sky Blues ) latest well-crafted mystery featuring retired Rozette, Mont., policeman Leo Banks. Sarah and Gerry Heyman, who were, respectively, Leo's major love and his best friend in college in the '60s, unexpectedly visit Rozette during a summer trip out West with their children. A few months later, Sarah calls to ask Leo to investigate Gerry's murder in the southern Illinois town of Mauvaisterre. Gerry, a doctor, was beaten to death while trying to clear the name of a patient, a slightly retarded man whom he believed was wrongly convicted for the murder of a local woman 50 years before. To solve Gerry's murder, Leo investigates the earlier killing and is thus drawn into a tangle of old small-town secrets as well as the emotional terrain of his youth. Best in this solid effort is the unexpected friendship that develops between Leo and Mauvaisterre's sheriff, Freddy Pointdexter. Lots of small-town atmosphere, another death and the sins of fathers and sons lead to a rousing nighttime stampede during a harvest fair and a credible resolution.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Laid-back former Montana cop Leo Banks saunters into his hardcover debut with a visit from old flame Sarah Heyman and her husband Gerry, Leo's onetime best friend, who come calling with an urgent request: Can Leo help Gerry investigate the 50-year-old drowning of Grace Turk in order to help him vindicate retarded Mickey Cochran, the convicted suspect who's sworn his innocence just before getting released from 50 years in stir to die of cancer? Naturally, Leo says no, and, naturally, Gerry shortly after gets killed. So Leo's off to Mauvaisterre, Illinois, to tilt with the local gendarmes (a troglodyte deputy, his sharp boss, and a slick state's attorney) and, more fitfully, with the suspects--especially Grace Turk's scoundrelly widower and their worthless son. The obligatory tender passages with Sarah pale besides Leo's brief, scorching scene with her own son. Good local color and fine, edgy dialogue enliven a fair-to- middling mystery. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881849901
• ISBN 13: 9780881849905
• Binding: Paperback