Synopsis
When New England private detective Jake Eaton investigates the disappearance of the flyer who was surveying a tract of land about to become public property, he finds himself in the midst of political corruption, money laundering, and illegal toxic waste dumping
Reviews
Boston-based PI Jake Eaton (Nantucket Revenge) and his faithful dog, Watson, travel to rural New Hampshire for their second adventure. Mildreth Gibbon Preston, widow of a Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist, hires Eaton to locate Colin Owens, who vanished while surveying 20,000 acres of mountainous forest land that Preston plans to give to the state. Jake finds local sheriff Myron Sellers shot to death, then learns that Owens and Sellers shared a $400,000 bank account and some nasty secrets. Jake concludes that they knew something about the Preston land. The unexplained money may have come from a waste-disposal tycoon who wants to buy the property, and who himself could be the target of small-time extortionists trying to escape their dreary, jobless town. All these people play rough, and when a mysterious trucker tries to run down Jake, only Watson's quick action saves him. A strong supporting cast and keenly observed New England settings thicken the eerie environmental scenario. As for Watson: his superdog intuition pushes the credibility envelope and his heroics make Lassie look lazy. The book, however, is more like Jake: solid and reliable, if unspectacular.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Cambridge, Mass., shamus Jake Eaton (Nantucket Revenge, 1995) is hired by imperious Mildreth Gibbon Preston to figure out what's going on up in Winslow, New Hampshire--where Mrs. Preston has just given the state 20,000 acres of pristine forest and mountain as a memorial to her late husband Oliver, a Nobel laureate and ``founder of the modern environmental movement.'' Specifically: Why has Colin Owens, the aerial surveyor assigned to do a flyover of the land, mysteriously disappeared? Could it be connected to the recent murder of a local sheriff--or to bygone village feuds and family secrets? The plot promises to become nicely complicated when the missing man is shot dead down in Boston . . . while breaking into Mrs. Preston's house! But once Jake realizes that all the mayhem is connected to the machinations of a ruthless corporate polluter, the action (revelations/chase/showdown) proceeds along more predictable melodramatic lines. Decent but uneven--with some distinctive village-character touches, a blandly brave hero (with a Lassie-like super-dog as sidekick), and a few intriguing toxic-waste details. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
