When veteran Chicago police detective Jeremy Ransom fails to crack his latest case--the murder of a man with no known enemies--he teams up with seventy-something Emily Charters, who believes she has the clue he needs to solve the crime
Presence of Mind is author Fred Hunter's first mystery, introducing Chicago cop Jeremy Ransom and septuagenarian Emily Charters.
Only six people attended a little theater production of "Love's Labours Lost;" five of them are murdered. Emily, the sixth audience member, puts it all together and gives Ransom the connecting link that helps him solve the killing.
Ransom is cultured and urbane, with a predilection for reading Dicken s and smoking cigars in the bathtub; Emily is spunky and adorable. They make an endearing, if unlikely team.
What's most interesting about this novel is that, although set in Chicago, its sensibilities are those of the British mystery of manners. The writing is discursive and introspective, and the characters all very proper; you expect them to stop everything each afternoon and pop 'round for tea.
And Hunter has a remarkable flair for small and telling detail. Each character's style of dress and place of abode is distinctive.
Even though author and protagonist are male, Presence of Mind should find its readership among women who admire the British "cozy."
Only six people were in the audience for the Pennington Players' final performance of Love's Labour's Lost, but it's six too many for whoever has started to kill them off. Emily Charters, the Marplesque spinster who's emerging as the sole survivor, teams up with Chicago police detective Jeremy Ransom, who just happens to be reading the right Dickens novel to point him toward the single slender clue that will finger the guilty Player (the Hollywood-bound founder? the hard- bitten ing‚nue? the dowdy gofer?)--after the obligatory trap baited with Emily. The Players' world--which playwright/first-novelist Hunter presumably knows well--has a seedy charm, though the police work seems thin and jarringly British despite the Chicago locale. Maybe Jeremy and Emily's promised next outing will be better balanced: after all, you can't kill the whole house in every book. --
Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.Meet Jeremy Ransom, a veteran homicide detective in Chicago who considers most of his partners "twits" and is currently rereading Dickens, a chapter or two of Bleak House while soaking in the tub at the end of the day. He sounds unlikely but is, in fact, the charmingly believable center of playwright Hunter's debut novel. Three recent, seemingly random murders are connected when elderly Emily Charters identifies the victims as fellow members of the audience at a performance of Love's Labour Lost at a small North Side storefront theater. Emily goes to the police with her observation, but only after more killings does Ransom finally believe that the audience must have witnessed something that incriminates the killer. An array of predictable motivations--naked ambition, artistic devotion, unrequited love--are planted among the suspects and the overplayed resolution reveals the killer in a light that doesn't jibe with earlier presentations. Despite these flaws, Hunter achieves a certain freshness with his material, mostly by means of Ransom's consistent, credible eccentricity and the warm portrayal of plucky, uncertain Emily Charters.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Once in a while, life offers a pleasant surprise: a new restaurant, the return of miniskirts, a glimpse of Michael Jordan on the street. Or, even better, finding a new author. This entertaining first novel features Chicago police detective Jeremy Ransom. He and partner Gerald White can't get a handle on the death of lawyer Lawrence Watson. Who would want to kill this quintessential average guy? His wife didn't like him, but she has an alibi and is rich in her own right. He got along with his business associates, and his clients respected him. Ransom, settling in for some Holmesian musing, is startled to see elderly Emily Charters standing before him. She and her friend Meg had recently been among a handful in the audience at a performance by an amateur theater group. Meg died unexpectedly shortly afterward. Then Emily recognized Watson's picture in the paper. He was also at the play, as was another recently murdered woman. Initially skeptical, Ransom soon forges a bond with Charters that eventually results in the solution to a very tricky case. Hunter's debut effort is cleverly plotted, and his sleuthing duo, Ransom and Charters, make a great team, reminiscent in some ways of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Great fun.
Wes LukowskyThree Chicago murder victims have just one thing in common: they all attended an unmemorable performance by a loosely knit group of storefront actors. Detective Jeremy Ransom realizes, after aging but sharp Emily Charters clues him in, that he must protect the remaining attendees--Emily among them. The murders occur daily, but time plays no other intrusive role. Despite the big-city background, this work reads like a village procedural and, indeed, follows the formula quite well for a first novel.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
