New Orleans Beat - Hardcover

Smith, Julie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0449907430 ISBN 13: 9780449907436

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

Detective Skip Langdon is sent to investigate the death of thirty-one-year-old Geoff Kavanagh, victim of an accidental fall from a ladder. But as Skip pursues the case, he discovers an on-line computer community whose secrets may mean the difference between accident and murder, and among whose anonymous members a killer may be waiting to strike again at anyone who comes too close . . .

About this title

From the Inside Flap

ip Langdon is sent to investigate the death of thirty-one-year-old Geoff Kavanagh, victim of an accidental fall from a ladder. But as Skip pursues the case, he discovers an on-line computer community whose secrets may mean the difference between accident and murder, and among whose anonymous members a killer may be waiting to strike again at anyone who comes too close . . .

Reviews

Edgar-winning Smith's latest Detective Skip Langdon story, (following Jazz Funeral ) falters as the New Orleans homicide cop's inattention to detail and normal police procedure needlessly prolong a complex case. Geoff Kavanagh's fatal fall from a ladder at home draws little attention until Skip's routine investigation raises suspicions. The 31-year-old man, who was still living with his mother and his stepfather, was by all accounts shy and immature. Skip learns, however, that he had had an active virtual life on TOWN, the computer bulletin board whose members suspect their friend was murdered. Geoff had recently talked online about having strange flashbacks to his father's death 25 years earlier, a scene that his mother insists he did not witness. Suspecting a TOWN member may have murdered both Geoff and his father, Skip delves into the network. In the process she puts off questioning other key figures. At the same time, her personal life nearly overshadows her work as her lover, Steve, remains in California and she meets a new man, teacher and bartender Darryl Boucree. Readers eager for an update of Skip's biography may be pleased with this installment, which will sorely disappoint those expecting a solid procedural. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Just a week before he took a conveniently fatal tumble off a ladder, underachieving computer nerd Geoffrey Kavanagh had begun to flash on memories of the night 20 years earlier when his father, Leighton, was supposedly killed by a burglar who didn't take anything but a ring belonging to Geoffrey's mother, Marguerite--and the murder gun. New Orleans cop Skip Langdon (Jazz Funeral, 1993, etc.), tentatively checking into TOWN (The Original Worldwide Network), to which Geoffrey had confided his dimly renewed memories, finds dozens of messages from TOWNsfolk across the country who are sure both Leighton and Geoffrey were murdered--and from several local TOWNies who may know much more: TOWN mayor Pearce Randolph, a reporter who covered the first murder; Geoffrey's girlfriend, Lenore Marquer, a practicing witch; Suby Kavanagh, daughter of Marguerite's brother-in-law-turned-second- husband; and Kit Brazil, another witch, who was the first wife of Marguerite's third husband. Smith worms her way deeply and painfully into her sorry cast's layers and layers of past relations, getting deeper than ever into Skip as well. Even the windup--a virtuoso spin on Rashomon--is laced with grief. A poisonous bouquet from a still-rising star. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon gleans information from several good friends, including a gossip-gathering sorority sister; a wealthy, supportive gay uncle; and a beautiful, bad-luck-with-the-men psychologist. As Skip investigates the suspicious death of a local computer nerd, she learns her way around the "Town," a nationwide computer network on which a guy announces that, as a child, he witnessed the unsolved murder of his cop father. Smith (The Axeman's Jazz, Ivey Bks., 1992) continues a tradition of great storytelling, memorable characters, and elusive surroundings. An essential purchase.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The newest entry in Smith's Skip Langdon series picks up on the latest techno-craze: the Internet is everywhere, and online bulletin boards are the in way to meet new friends. Geoff Kavanaugh, a thirtysomething computer nerd, is dead, seemingly the victim of an accidental fall from a ladder. But Geoff's buddies in TOWN, a virtual online community of self-styled computer acquaintances, think there's something suspicious about his death, particularly since he'd been having recent flashbacks about a murder he witnessed years earlier. Langdon, New Orleans homicide detective, is assigned to reopen the case, and even though she's got plenty of personal troubles to distract her (a shaky long-distance romance, her gay friend Jimmy Dee's newly acquired and rebellious teenage wards), she's determined to get to the bottom of the puzzling case. Smith is a skilled writer who can evoke the steamy, mysterious ambience of New Orleans while simultaneously proving that computer jargon can be comprehensible even to the computer-challenged. This is a humorous, suspenseful mystery, and it stands to further increase the popularity of Smith's already hot New Orleans series. Emily Melton

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0449907430
• ISBN 13: 9780449907436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 359