Customer Reviews

All the Lonely People

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

His estranged wife Liz, who he has not seen since she deserted him for Mick Coghlan two years ago, sits in his living room waiting for attorney Harry Devlin to come home. When he arrives she asks him if she could crash here as she is scared of Mick, whom she is leaving for a married man. Still wanting Liz, Harry reluctantly agrees.

Two mornings later, Detective Inspector Skinner and his partner D.S. MacBeth question Harry on his whereabouts as someone killed Liz. The police believe an angry Harry stabbed his wife numerous times over her using him. Harry feels Mick is the culprit. However, he is shocked when a reporter friend tells him that Liz was two months pregnant. Realizing that he remains the prime suspect, Harry begins making inquiries into Liz's life, especially since she walked out on him.

While the amateur sleuth investigation occurs somewhat late, the tale effortlessly switches back and forth between legal thriller and police procedural. Harry serves as the glue and the focus of the varying sub-genre subplots. The support cast either enhances the murder whodunit or enables the audience to better understand Harry. Martin Edwards serves up an electrifying story line that traverses the mystery realm.

Harriet Klausner

Harry Devlin is an attorney who married a beautiful woman with a mischievous and magnetic personality. He can't quit her, even though she left him for a few other men with zero regard for his feelings. When she's murdered, Devlin is possessed by the desire to find her killer.

Devlin's quest for justice seems a little unbelievable. She was a horrible person who deeply wounded her husband with her infidelities, and I found it hard to believe he "could not rest until he found the killer!" The writing style is O.K., but there are too many forced similes that grate on the reader after a few chapters. Ending a chapter with a "mysterious" question is also a thriller no-no--"Could it be that our hero was wrong in his suspicion of Bob as the killer?!" Kind of corny.

The criminal would have been quite easy to identify, for both the police and Devlin, if Edwards would not have withheld obvious relationships among the suspects. Martin has promise, but this is not a first-rate novel.