Strangler: A Jake Eaton Mystery - Hardcover

Larry Maness

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0891415688 ISBN 13: 9780891415688

Publisher: Presidio Press, 1998

Synopsis

Who is killing the co-eds of Harvard Square: is the Boston Strangler back?

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Why has the Cambridge Police Department been shut out of the case of Ruth Hill, a researcher raped and strangled on Cambridge Common? Herald reporter Bruce Drummond tells shamus Jake Eaton that the Boston department has grabbed the case of his murdered friend, and he wants Jake to find out why it was done--and who did it. Jake has no trouble linking Ruth's murder to two similar murders over the past, but he suspects the earlier cases aren't the real reason Boston is sitting on the case; the roots go much deeper--30 years back, to the days of the Boston Strangler, long ago convicted and killed in prison. When the cops pounced on Albert DeSalvo and put him away, did they get the wrong guy? Or is a diabolical copycat at work? Before Jake can come up with answers, Drummond is tortured and killed, with every indication that the slayings will go on. The clue to the strangler's identity seems to lie in the uncompleted doctoral dissertation of Harvard psychology student Vicki Shaw--but everybody who's seen the manuscript is dead. Can Jake and his ladylove Gloria Graham keep Vicki herself from becoming the strangler's final victim? Maness (A Once Perfect Place, 1996, etc.) provides some thoughtful commentary on the original Boston Strangler investigation, though his hey-presto solution isn't likely to trouble the sleep of cops in Boston, Cambridge, or anywhere else. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Boston private investigator Jake Eaton (Nantucket Revenge, LJ 11/1/95) wonders why the Boston police have taken over a Cambridge murder case involving rape and strangulation. Eaton quickly discovers a possible connection to the infamous Boston strangler: the victim worked for a woman hoping to publish her theory that the real Boston strangler escaped because of police connivance. A highly interesting plot, complicated by further violence, the deaths of two others connected to the book, and the machinations of the villain himself, makes this a solid choice for most collections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0891415688
• ISBN 13: 9780891415688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192