January Corpse

Seven years after Daniel Wilson's mysterious disappearance, the artist's family, eager to settle his estate, hires private eye Dave Garrett to find evidence of Wilson's death, but death threats and a tangle with the mob make Garrett's job difficult

This exceptional first mystery is driven by a baffling plot and comes to a surprise ending that passes the Holmesian test: after the impossible is eliminated, that which remains, however improbable, is the truth. Seven years before the story opens, fledgling attorney Daniel Wilson had disappeared, and his bullet-pocked and bloody car was found by his sister Lisa in the woods near the place where they had planned to meet later that evening. Now Dave Garrett, a disbarred lawyer turned PI, is called in to help the estate have Wilson declared dead so the survivors can collect his insurance. Defying mob warnings to lay off, escaping two sets of gunsels sent to maim or kill him, penetrating a fog of deceit and lies laid down by Lisa, her mother and Wilson's law partner, the brave, able, cynical Dave, after a night in Lisa's arms, comes to a startling conclusion worthy of a Scott Turow. Like Turow, Albert is a lawyer. He promises more adventures for his appealing sleuth.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Disbarred attorney-turned-Pennsylvania p.i. Dave Garrett has only the weekend to prove that a man who disappeared seven years ago is dead so that the man's mom and sister Lisa can collect on his insurance policy. Was the vanished Danny Wilson murdered, and if so, by whom? His former law partner, Leo Strasnick, says their practice consisted mostly of civil cases, but then why is Garrett being tailed and warned off by mafia types? And what happened to the $100,000 Wilson had with him in his car? And was someone else with him? Abetted by the pretty but tough Lisa (she has no trouble shooting a thug, point-blank, in the foot as a warning), Garrett begins to suspect that Wilson's still alive. But then who died in that blood-splattered car? The unsurprising revelation may have readers flipping back a few pages and rereading Garrett and Lisa's romantic interlude--in disbelief. Workmanlike prose, routine beat-up-the-p.i. sequences, and a twist ending that fizzles. A disappointing debut. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.