The Chartreuse Clue - Hardcover

Love, William F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1556112114 ISBN 13: 9781556112119

Publisher: Donald I Fine, 1990

Synopsis

David Goldman, a former New York City policeman, and Francis X. Regan, the wheelchair-bound bishop for whom Goldman works as Special Assistant, investigate the murder of a young woman whose body is discovered in a local priest's bed

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

This suspenseful debut novel, the first of a projected series, introduces a charismatic detective team reminiscent of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Narrator David Goldman, a sarcastic Jewish private eye, is also a trusted assistant to Bishop Francis Regan of the Archdiocese of New York, himself a wheelchair-bound "frustrated cop" with an IQ of 220. When a monk wakes up in the apartment of a murdered woman, the two seek to protect him and the Archdiocese's reputation by locating the culprit. Outwitting police inspectors who are itching to arrest the monk, they discover that the wealthy victim was not the only member of her bank-owning family to die mysteriously. Like Wolfe, Regan is an irascible verbal genius based in a brownstone in Manhattan's West 30s. His idiosyncrasies infuriate Goldman who, like Goodwin, is an intensely loyal secretary and chauffeur, baseball and poker fan, and practical man of action who collects the pieces of the puzzle so that his colleague can solve the murder. Boasting more witty one-liners than brain-teasing puzzles, this tightly focused, fast-paced novel surely merits a second installment.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

First-novelist Love integrates his experience as banker, monk, and priest into a slick action-filled adventure featuring an ex-cop detective and a wheelchair-bound bishop in New York. Dave Goldman, jaunty lapsed Jew, acts as special assistant to Auxilary Bishop Regan (or as valet to another Ironside?), providing the legwork and license for Regan's deductive thinking. When a Benedictine monk drunkenly awakens one morning to find his lady friend stabbed to death, he contacts Regan for help. With police hotly pursuing, Goldman infiltrates the close circle of suspects, all the while protecting the church's reputation. Love seems to have his material and procedure down pat, but his work could use a little more originality.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Donald I Fine
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 1556112114
• ISBN 13: 9781556112119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284