Synopsis
Disabled Florida P.I. Fred Carver faces the most painful case of his career when his lover is injured in a bomb blast that kills two abortion clinic workers, and Carver must discover whether the bomb was the work of a religious zealot, or a personal vendetta.
Reviews
Heat-seeking Florida PI Fred Carver (Burn, Torch, Spark, etc.) tackles the highly flammable abortion issue in his searing 10th outing. Carver's live-in lover, Beth Jackson, who is black, discovers that she is pregnant and, after much thought, decides that she will proceed with the pregnancy. When she stops by the Women's Light Clinic to cancel her appointment, she passes through a gauntlet of anti-abortion protesters from Operation Alive. An explosion rips the clinic just after she enters-killing a doctor and a patient and injuring Beth, who loses her baby. Investigations by the FBI and the local police, headed by William McGregor (surely one of the most unsavory police officers in the genre) result in an early arrest of a young and fanatical member of Operation Alive. On his own, Carver investigates Operation Alive's leader, Rev. Martin Freel of the Church of the Clear Connection, and talks with the widow of the slain doctor, with a surviving physician determined to carry on the clinic's work and with other witnesses and suspects. Another bomb explodes at another clinic, and a sadistic, Bible-spouting killer surfaces. Behind the intransigent and hackneyed rhetoric of both sides, Carver finds venality aplenty as he and Beth attempt to come to terms with their loss. Veteran novelist Lutz ties some nifty twists into his plot, which moves quickly towards a final deadly confrontation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Because she's decided to cancel her appointment at the Women's Light reproductive clinic and have Fred Carver's baby after all, black reporter Beth Jackson is on hand to get injured in a bombing that kills Wanda Creighton and Dr. Harold Grimm. Carver, without a client, then hunkers down to get the goods on Adam Norton, the auto mechanic who was seen running out of the clinic moments before the blast, and on Operation Alive, the militant anti-abortion group that's condemning member Norton's tactics while lending him their lawyer. Norton's wife tells Carver that the police have no business persecuting her husband, since although he'd fully intended to bomb some abortion clinic, he hadn't actually gotten around to planting the bomb yet. Nate Posey, Wanda's fianc‚, wants to hire Carver, but Carver wonders if Posey didn't plant the bomb himself for Wanda's insurance. Meantime, a cop assigned to guard the hospitalized Beth has been beaten to death at the side of her bed, and Carver's noticed some utterly unexpected couples emerging: an FBI agent and another bomb survivor, Dr. Grimm's widow and the head of Operation Alive. Carver's tenth outing is deft, evenhanded, and more deeply felt than his last few (Burn, 1995, etc.), though most of the mystery's left till the very end. Mid-level Lutz. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
This time out, crime strikes very close to private detective Fred Carver's home. His significant other, journalist Beth Jackson, is pregnant with their child. Carver is delighted when she changes her mind about having an abortion--until she goes to the clinic to cancel her appointment. As she enters, a bomb explodes, killing two clinic workers. Beth loses the baby. Local police and the FBI very quickly arrest a likely suspect, but driven by loss and anger, Carver begins to investigate other possibilities. His primary target is Operation Alive, a militant church-based group of anti-abortion demonstrators, but as he pursues his case, events point Carver toward a different motive for the bombing. Lutz is a reliable creator of mysteries, and Carver, a middle-aged former cop who has been pensioned after losing the use of one leg to the gun of a teenaged convenience-store robber, is an engaging hero. Here Carver's almost inchoate ruminations about the fanaticism of anti-abortion zealots are especially well done, and fans of the balding, disabled detective won't be disappointed. Thomas Gaughan
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
