From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Griffith's intense third thriller to star Aud Torvingen (after
The Blue Place and
Stay), the stylish half-American, half-Norwegian lesbian ex-cop and self-defense teacher is still grieving over the shooting death of her lover, Julia, a year earlier. Also distraught over a recent violent incident involving one of her self-defense students, Aud welcomes the chance to leave Atlanta, accompanied by her friend, Matthew Dornan, to visit her ambassador mother, Else, in Seattle. There sabotage of a TV pilot in production that's been receiving OSHA and EPA complaints disrupts their vacation. Adding romantic tension is Victoria "Kick" Kuiper, a caterer and former stuntwoman, to whom both Aud and Matthew are attracted. Aud's ace investigation reveals political and environmental chicanery, but more importantly, leads to a surprising lesson about love. Lucid prose and great self-defense lessons are a plus.
(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Yowza! Griffith's six-foot-tall, cropped-haired heroine Aud Torvingen is back, flying to Washington since she has inherited her father's holdings and must deal with a Seattle real-estate manager who is robbing her blind. She also needs to see her wealthy, diplomat mother and meet her new stepfather. Interspersed are flashbacks of the women's self-defense class she'd taught back home in Atlanta--with unforeseen and deadly results. Griffith deftly parallels the two narrative threads that comment on and complement each other, creating a synergy of action and adrenaline for one of crime fiction's toughest yet most sensual lesbian detectives. Griffith's writing is smart and crisply detailed as she smoothly orchestrates a plot that delivers Aud to the soundstage for an independent film. There, production problems raise her suspicions of sabotage, confirmed when the coffee urn is spiked with a drug cocktail of Ecstacy, magic mushrooms, oxycodone, angel dust, and speed, nearly killing Aud and various crew members. Fist-slamming physicality is beautifully balanced with raised emotional stakes as Griffith dares to take her lethally forceful heroine to a new level.
Whitney ScottCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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