High Fall

When a young stunt artist plunges to her death during a film shooting, private investigator Kiernan O'Shaughnessy becomes suspicious and sets out to uncover the darker side of the movie business and its professionals. 15,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Kiernan O'Shaugnessy, the doughty, acid-tongued 40-ish PI and former forensic pathologist introduced in A Pious Deception, moves inside the Hollywood stunt world to probe two murders spaced 10 years apart. The stunt lore and forensics in the latest Kiernan adventure nearly compensate for its implausible, contrived plot. Stuntwoman Lark Sodervoil, 19, aims at becoming the first person to replicate the spectacular multi-flip known as the Gaige Move but dies in the attempt, plunging over a 500-foot bluff. The gag, or event, is directed by Cary Bleeker, who's been dogged by bad luck ever since the fiery death a decade before of Greg Gaige, who wasn't adequately protected in a fiery stunt. Lark's plunge was witnessed by five people who had also seen Gaige go up in flames. But perception is not reality. Suspecting foul play in Lark's death and out of respect for Gaige, whom she had slightly known and greatly admired, Kiernan investigates and finds that the recent death leads directly to the earlier one. Readers hoping that Kiernan will finally fall for Brad Tchernak, her level-headed dog-sitter, houseman and gourmet chef, will be put on hold again, as the tiny PI finds another object for her affections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ten years after dying on a fiery Hollywood set in the ill- fated film Bad Companions, nonpareil stuntman Greg Gaige is back in the news. Lark Sondervoil, an unflappable 19-year-old stuntwoman, has mastered the Gaige Move, a fiendishly difficult gymnastic maneuver, and she invites the San Diego press to watch her segue from the Move to a high fall from a cliff in a new movie. But somebody moves Lark's starting marker, and she goes over the wrong cliff. Watching her are pathologist-shamus Kiernan O'Shaughnessy (Not Exactly a Brahmin, 1985, etc.), whose life Greg had touched briefly but decisively, and five of the people who were on the set the day Greg died: a jinxed second-unit director; a producer; a media liaison; a pesky studio brat; and the stuntman whom Greg had replaced in Bad Companions. Whodunit, how, and why? To find out, versatile Kiernan will masquerade as a union representative to crash the studio screening of the fatal rushes; sneak into the San Diego morgue for a freelance autopsy; and break into Lark's studio, only to run into the burglar who's already there. Along the way, there'll be such an engaging series of conversations, so many telling forensic details, and such a sure sense of the leading players that only the captious would complain about the disappointing revelations at the end. (Mystery Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Nineteen-year-old movie stuntwoman Lark Sondervoil vows to be the first person in 10 years to attempt the "Gaige move," named for the late legendary stuntman Greg Gaige. Private eye Kiernan O'Shaughnessy, who once studied gymnastics with Gaige, arrives to watch the filming of Sondervoil's stunt. It goes wrong. Sondervoil misses her mark and plunges off a cliff to her death. Outraged to learn the fall was captured on film and will probably be used in an upcoming film, Kiernan decides to find out what went wrong. The trail leads back a decade to a botched fireball stunt, a misidentified body, and a string of self-serving Hollywood types to whom life and death are merely factors in who gets the next starring vehicle. This satisfying mystery nicely balances an extraordinarily unflattering vision of show biz and its denizens with Kiernan's grounded, real-world morality and sense of justice. Crisp plotting and a memorable heroine add to the fun. Wes Lukowsky

Kiernan O'Shaughnessy, a fortyish former forensic pathologist turned series private detective, witnesses the horrible-if spectacular-accidental death of a 19-year-old stuntwoman. A typical plot scenario follows: the "accidental" death turns out to be murder, so Kiernan pursues the murderer, who apparently had struck under similar circumstances ten years earlier. Subplots form around the power plays and iniquities of the movie and stunt people involved, providing ample challenge for cocky Kiernan's medical and investigatory prowess. With slick and sassy prose, Dunlap (Time Expired, LJ 5/1/93) moves it all forward. Good entertainment.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.