All in One Piece [Hardcover]

Cecelia Tishy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2006

From the author of "Now You See Her" comes a second compelling installment inthe new series featuring psychic-sleuth Regina Cutter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boston psychic Regina "Reggie" Cutter is a little more comfortable with her sometimes strong but always unpredictable paranormal powers in her second outing from English professor Tishy (after 2005's Now You See Her). Reggie escapes with minor injuries after a car tries to run her down outside her South End townhouse, which she inherited along with her psychic abilities from her Aunt Jo, but her troubles really begin with the brutal murder of her upstairs tenant, Steven Damelin. Threats multiply as Reggie tries to untangle threads that reach into the immigrant past of nearby Lawrence, Mass., and into the complex relationships of Steven and his putative family and friends. As in Now You See Her, Aunt Jo's police detective pal, Frank Devaney, and an enigmatic biker, R.K. Stark, lend a helping hand. Middle-aged Reggie dithers less this time out and is more determined than ever to take charge of her own fate when challenged. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Reggie Cutter (Now You See Her, 2005) may be psychic, but her ability isn't much help when it comes to figuring out puzzles close to home. She has no idea, for example, why someone would deliberately try to run her down on the street. Nor do her visions reveal the identity of the monster who viciously killed her upstairs tenant, Steven Damelin, nailing his body to the floor and marking her own front door with his blood. When local cops are slow to act, Reggie investigates on her own, piecing together information about Steven's business dealings and his personal life that puts her own life in jeopardy. Supporting characters--Stark, Reggie's deus ex machina on a motorcycle; Biscuit, the dog they share; and Reggie's two grown children--make brief appearances here, but it's really Reggie's show. And though her fortuitous escapes grow a bit wearing and her paranormal talents are barely in evidence, the suspense builds all the way to the end, which is unforeseen even by the psychic at the center of it all. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; 1 edition (March 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892967978
• ISBN-13: 978-0892967971
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,199,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Psychic absurdity, April 7, 2006

By 

JOHN A. BROUSSARD (Kamuela, HI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All in One Piece (Hardcover)

Life can be rough for a psychic when her powers fail, as they do big-time one day for Reggie Cutter. She has no forewarning of the speeding car which leaves her sprawling, bruised on the road. And though the tenant in her apartment house comes rushing out, he isn't much help. He insists she was jaywalking, which somehow convinces her that the hit and run really wasn't really a hit and run. But that's just the beginning of a bad day. That evening, blood drips down by the radiator in her apartment from the tenant's rooms above and--you've guessed it!--he's been murdered . . . killed with an electric drill and pinned to the floor with a nail gun. In addition, a strange calligraphic figure has been written in blood on Reggie's door. All of this leaves her determined to find out who the killer/artist is but her psychic powers do little to help either her or the police. ALL IN ONE PIECE is about Reggie's dogged and frequently bruised pursuit of the perpetrator among a host of suspects. Tishy manages to keep up a suspenseful atmosphere while providing an intriguing protagonist--one who manages to bumble along to a final and somewhat unbelievable solution to both the crime and the art work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Annoying main character and inacurate description of Boston, September 26, 2008

By 

R. Murphy (Jamaica Plain, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All In One Piece (Mass Market Paperback)

Another book chosen at random from the library to read on the T to and from work. The mystery itself was interestingly plotted, but everything surrounding it is the reason for my low rating.

Ms. Tishy has clearly researched, but never been a resident of, Boston. The city is written to be a major character in the book, with many references to local streets and neighborhoods. However, anything that can't be found on a tourist web site or census map is wrong. [After writing this, I read a different author bio than is included on the book jacket; it appears she lived in Boston for twenty years. This just makes the characterizations of the city and its residents all the more egregious and hateful.]

The problems with setting characterization are too many to list and start on page 2; after the main character is hit by a car, her upstairs tenant tries to convince her it was her fault because she didn't cross at the walk. Anyone who has spent a half a day in the city will tell you that locals - drivers and pedestrians alike - have only a vague idea what the white stripes in the road mean. Any street that is not a highway can and will be crossed at any point. Crosswalks just mean that pedestrians are more likely to swear at the cars that won't stop for them.

Reggie Cutter, our "heroine," is an idiot and a racist. She doesn't solve the case through intelligence or even good use of her psychic powers, but dumb luck. People tell her things because she is very annoying and they want her to leave. To a certain amount the racism in the book could be overlooked as a character flaw of the Reggie's, but then is becomes clear the problem is with the author herself.

The scene where the author's prejudices and shoddy research first bleed into the story happens fairly early. After someone is killed in Reggie's building, the killer paints something in an Asian language on her door in blood. She takes some photos and brings them to Chinatown to see if anyone can translate. Although she tries several stores she can't find a single person working there who can speak English well enough for her to explain what she is asking for. That is simply impossible. Sure, many stores may have one or two employees who's grasp on English is minimal, but the vast majority of stores are run by families that have lived in America for many generations and are fully bi-lingual. The whole exchange was insulting to read.

Another instance occurs when Reggie goes to Mozart St. in Jamaica Plain to talk with a teenager that the deceased had been mentoring. Because his last name is Spanish and he lives on a predominantly Hispanic block, she buys a Spanish phase book and never even attempts to speak English to his neighbors. In so doing, she stumbles upon a very good way of ensuring that no one in a Hispanic neighborhood will speak with you: be a busy-body white woman in your 50's shouting "Hola! Hola!" up at people windows. They speak English just fine, but are now pissed off because you obviously think they are too stupid to learn. Again, like the Chinatown scene, just because someone has retained the language and traditions of their ancestors doesn't mean that they are a recent immigrant and/or ignorant of the predominant language of the country they live in.

In closing the whole book was insulting on several levels and I only finished it because the book I was waiting on wasn't yet available.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I look forward to another in the series but, July 29, 2006

By 

John Speer (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All in One Piece (Hardcover)

I hope the author does a better job managing the characters. The ending felt tacked-on; yes, we learned the killer's identity, but in a rather abrupt manner. Felt as though a timer had gone off, sort of the end of an exam: "Fingers off the keyboard, pass your work forward to your publisher."