The Dutch

Research Associate Les Roberts

ISBN 10: 0312265794 / ISBN 13: 9780312265793

Published by Minotaur Books, 2001

About this Item

#12 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . . In street parlance, the dutch is another expression for suicide. That's what everyone assumes happened to Ellen Carnine when her broken body is found 150 feet below the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in downtown Cleveland. A terse, sad suicide note has been left on the screen of her home computer. But her grieving father asks private eye Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovitch) to figure out why a bright and successful, dot-com executive like Ellen took her own life. Milan is introduced to a different reality by Ellen's four best female friends, an old lover, her employers, and some of the lowlifes from Cleveland's meanest streets. The search for the truth leads Milan into the unfamiliar territory of Internet chat rooms, where he learns a great deal about the faceless people who live part of their lives behind a screen, becoming best friends--or bitter enemies--without actually meeting. Milan pushes too far--and uncovers the most brutal and heinous crime he's ever faced.

Seller Inventory # CIN0312265794A

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Dutch
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312265794
• ISBN 13: 9780312265793
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis

Milan Jacovich, Cleveland's most popular private investigator, specializes in industrial security, but when another type of case comes up that is too good to resist he will agree to work on it. That is exactly what happens when Professor Carnine walks into his office in this 12th addition to the series.

Milan recognizes Dr. Carnine's name, but can't remember from where until Dr. Carnine explains. His daughter's body was found under a local bridge. The police agreed that 30-year-old Ellen Carnine committed suicide, or in street parlance "did the dutch." However, Dr. Carnine cannot accept that answer and wants Milan to find out what could have driven his daughter, somewhat of a recluse, to take her own life? He is filled with guilt that maybe there was something about his daughter he should have known, that maybe there was a way he could have helped her. Reluctantly, Milan agrees to take the case knowing that the outcome will not be happy for anyone.

Milan finds that Ellen spent most of her time on the computer either working or on the Internet and that she was appreciated by her bosses, a pair of young Cleveland entrepreneurs who made movies. But interviews with her few friends lead him to see her as an independent person who got satisfaction from her work and had accepted the fact that she was seriously overweight and physically unattractive.

Digging further, Milan comes upon upsetting small clues that shout "murder" to him, and suspicions about what her employers were actually up to grow. His investigation begins to take a different, and eventually dangerous, direction until he uncovers the horrific truth behind Ellen's death.

About the Author

Les Roberts, a native Chicagoan, lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He moved there from Hollywood, where, among other things, he was the producer of THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. Past president of the Private Eye Writers of America, Roberts won the initial St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest in 1986. He is currently at work on the next Milan Jacovich mystery.