Methods of Execution

While appealing the death sentence of a serial killer, Seattle lawyer Matthew Riordan uncovers a world of murder, blackmail, and aberrant sexuality that reaches into the highest political levels of the city. 25,000 first printing.

In the fifth Matt Riordan novel, a well-written, well-constructed legal mystery, Huebner ( Picture Postcard ) sets his Seattle lawyer on a cold trail of evidence littered with betrayals of both private lives and professional principles. Riordan's old lover, Liz Kleinfeldt, asks him to help her get a stay of execution for Robert Polhaus, the so-called Motel Room Killer. Something about Polhaus's conviction for a series of rapes and murders smells wrong to Liz, even though the murders stopped after he was caught. Raking over the case history, Riordan discovers that the victims were connected to the same escort service; further evidence, suggesting that some powerful and protected people might have wanted these women dead, leads to another killing. Riordan's investigation builds up complex currents of suspense as each of the major characters in this tale, which focuses on the past, plumbs his or her own troubled personal history. Surprising twists in the story lead to a payoff that, while holding up to scrutiny, nevertheless seems a little weak, especially following the deft characterization and plotting that led up to it.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

His former lover Elizabeth Kleinfeldt drags self-exiled Seattle lawyer Matthew Riordan (Picture Postcard, 1990) back into the ring to investigate the slim chance that her client, death-row inmate Robert Polhaus, isn't really the Motel Room Killer who strangled three hookers four years before. Though Polhaus is no model citizen, the case against him stinks to high heaven: The police never bothered to look for two witnesses Polhaus said he saw at the third crime scene; all three victims had passed through Dreams, an escort service run by plausible but sadistic Larry Poole; a therapist who'd been treating all three of them hanged himself hours after the third body was discovered; and the third victim's john book, which the police never found, implicates everybody from an investigating county cop to a local newspaper columnist to the judge who heard prostitution cases against all three. But just when Liz seems to be close to the smoking gun, she's killed, and her raised-eyebrow law firm is determined to run grieving Riordan off the case. Dense, turbulent, and just sleazy enough for the squeamish. The final revelation, though, may be one surprise too many. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Although Matthew Riordan gave up his Seattle law practice because of stress, he now agrees to help his sometime lover Elizabeth (also a lawyer) save the life of a convicted serial murderer she believes has been railroaded. Riordan becomes a private investigator in all but name as he struggles against the accused's unsavory reputation, the young victims' association with prostitution, a police cover-up, and a murderer to find the crucial evidence needed. Forceful prose, psychological overtones, and a well-constructed plot make this a winner.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.