Synopsis
FBI agent Ana Grey probes a case involving a fading movie star, a famous doctor, and an allegedly illegal supply of drugs and discovers that the boundaries between her professional and private lives are beginning to break down. A first novel. 125,000 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
Smith comes out swinging and never lets up in her knockout debut novel. It seems a misnomer to label this a detective story, since the mysteries unraveled by FBI agent Ana Grey are in another league entirely--as is Grey herself. She delves into a case involving Violeta Alvarado, a woman who may or may not have been her distant cousin. (Grey knows little about her Central American father's side of the family, and her discoveries about her past--in particular her changing view of the retired police officer grandfather who raised her--are gripping.) Alvarado has been gunned down, leaving behind two small children; almost simultaneously, aging starlet Jayne Mason, recently sprung from Betty Ford, accuses Alvarado's former employer, a physician, of addicting her to prescription drugs. Smith has her finger on the pulse of modern American life here, fictionally capturing numerous societal trends with great style. The doctor under investigation lives in a wealthy section of Santa Monica north of Montana Avenue, ``the land of the newly rich where noontime joggers pass beneath scarlet-tipped coral trees on a wide grassy meridian.'' This is the same area where Grey lived with her grandfather during the early years of her life, and where their modest home is now for sale at $875,000. In further exploration of the breach between rich and poor, Grey is taken on a joy ride by Jayne Mason and momentarily falls under the celebrity's spell; she also goes on an outing to a bot nica with the woman caring for Alvarado's children and receives mystical instructions on how to find peace. These episodes carry no whiff of sociological discourse; they just happen to be part of a terrific story. Even a plot line involving frustrated love that threads through the other narratives has impact and originality. Transcends all conventions. (First printing of 125,000; Literary Guild main selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
YA?Santa Monica, north of Montana Avenue, is "the land of the newly rich," a place where FBI agent Ana Grey definitely feels out of place. It is to these households that she must go when she is assigned to investigate a drug case involving a handsome doctor and a has-been film star. And it is to the working-class household of her own childhood, just a few blocks to the south, that she must go to solve a mystery concerning her family. Both stories intersect when a poor, young Hispanic woman who claimed to be a relative of Ana's long-dead father is brutally murdered. In addition, there is the problem of the dead woman's two young children left in the care of a neighbor who cannot afford to keep them for very long. Two other threads enliven this tale: one centers on Ana's career struggles as a female agent proving herself to her male bosses and the guys in the "bullpen." The other is her coming to terms with a growing romantic attraction to her partner, Mike Donnato. Ana Grey is an interesting addition to the growing ranks of independent-minded fictional female detectives. YAs who enjoy rich characterization and unexpected plot twists will appreciate the complications in her life. At the end of the novel enough threads are left hanging to make a sequel most welcome.?Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In a stunningly assured debut, Smith has produced a crime thriller distinguished by an unflagging pace, authoritative use of detail and an appealing heroine. In vigorous, literate prose, Smith delivers characters of depth and dimension who inhabit the wildly diverse worlds of Southern California, each rendered with a cinematic eye. Her protagonist is Ana Grey, an ambitious, brash young FBI agent. With seven years in the L.A. field office and a recent "perfect bust" of a bank robber, Ana is ready to move up. A resentful superior stands in the way, however, and instead of getting transferred, Ana is assigned to a high-profile case involving a megawatt movie star of a certain age who has brought charges against a local doctor for addicting her to drugs. At the same time, Ana receives a phone call asking her to help the two young children of a recent street-shooting victim in Santa Monica--an immigrant from El Salvador who told friends that Ana was her cousin. Ana insists it's a hoax: abandoned as an infant by her father, a migrant worker from Mexico, she was raised by her mother, now deceased, and her beloved grandfather, a retired Santa Monica cop. Then Ana learns that the Salvadoran woman had worked for the physician charged in the drug case and finds herself tangled in events that lace together both personal and professional aspects of her life and trigger a troubling series of forgotten memories of her childhood. Moving through an array of settings--L.A.'s crowded Latino section, El Piojilla; the blue-collar Santa Monica neighborhood of her youth; the modern elegance of the "overbuilt upscale enclave" known as "north of Montana"--Ana grapples with more death, Hollywood politics, personal betrayal and her own seething desires. Wisely leaving some ends untied, Smith resolves the central themes of this seamless narrative in this smashing story. 200,000 first printing; Literary Guild selection; Random House AudioBook.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Television writer and producer Smith has translated her media background and knowledge of Tinseltown into an exceptional first novel that is gripping, provocative, oddly touching, original, witty--and a likely prospect for the best-seller list. Success-hungry L.A.-based FBI agent Ana Grey is just waiting for the case that will catapault her from the humdrum Bank Robbery Squad into the exalted Kidnapping and Extortion Division. The hoped-for promotion is Ana's first step to her ultimate goal: a plum job as Special Agent in Charge. But department politics, a jealous supervisor, and Ana's abrasive impatience detour her to a case that's a real hot potato. Glamorous movie star Jayne Mason, past her prime but still adored by her fans, claims a local M.D. hooked her on painkillers. She wants his head on a platter courtesy of the FBI, even though the doctor appears to be clean as a whistle. The case is a minefield waiting to explode Ana's ambitious life plan if she makes a single mistake. Will her usual cool competence prevail, or will the combination of professional pressure and personal crises in her life cause Ana to make a fatal misstep? This one's got it all: a topnotch plot, masterly writing, outstanding characterization and dialogue, and a wonderfully quirky heroine. An A-list priority for all collections. Emily Melton
Smith, a television writer and producer, has written a remarkably spare first novel about a young female FBI agent in Los Angeles who tackles a high-profile case. For the ambitious Ana Grey-who must constantly endure snipes from her sexist supervisor-proving that a doctor-to-the-stars knowingly overprescribed narcotics to a revered Hollywood actress is her surefire ticket to a promotion. Predictably, all is not as it seems, and Ana struggles to unravel the truth. Meanwhile, her personal life takes some unpredictable turns that impinge on the case. Smith chronicles Los Angeles's cultural angst with an eye that is kind but unflinching. Her characters are a bit sketchy, but the narrative moves so fast one hardly notices. Demand for this should be brisk, so public libraries should purchase accordingly.
--Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
