Body Language [Abridged, Audiobook, CD] [Audio CD]

James W. Hall (Author), Laural Merlington (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2003

Alexandra Rafferty works nights for the Miami PD, capturing all the grisly details of crimes scenes on film. She lives with her father, an ex-cop who is slipping into senility, and her louse of a husband, who spends his days dreaming about the perfect crime, and his nights with his mistress. A serial killer is leaving the bodies of young women twisted into strange symbols. Juggling crime photos, Alexandra realizes that the symbols are, in reality, letters of the alphabet -- and that they spell out her name. She suddenly finds herself dealing with her chaotic present and coming to terms with her long-buried past in a dangerous roller coaster ride that takes her from the mean streets of Miami to the Florida panhandle -- and straight into the hands of a killer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Of all the crime writers currently mining Florida for fictional gold, James W. Hall is arguably the best at catching that state's unique topographic heartbeat. In his books about beach bum Thorne (including Buzz Cut, Mean High Tide, and Hard Aground), you can smell the ocean mixed in with the blood. Now Hall is starting a new series, about Miami police photographer Alexandra Rafferty, and readers will probably overlook the nagging feeling of some ingredients from other Florida writers tossed into the mix (Elmore Leonard's gallery of colorful sociopaths, Carl Hiaasen's over-the-top quirkiness) because of dead-on descriptions like this: "Jennifer McDougal's small white cottage at 2709 Leafy Way was wedged between two Coconut Grove mansions. To the west was a massive high-tech structure with severe angles, skylights, buttresses, heavy concrete archways, and dozens of columns holding up a grape trellis. A neon flamingo was lit up beside the massive front doors and neon numerals flickered beneath it." Alexandra is a fascinating character, wounded by a childhood rape. Very protective of her ex-policeman father who saved her then and has now slipped into senility, she deliberately keeps her talents and emotions in check. Her husband (one of those lovable Leonard lunatics) is an armored-car driver secretly planning the crime of the century, and the rest of the plot involves the search for a killer of young women who leaves his victims in unusual postures. --Dick Adler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Following last year's downcast Red Sky at Night, which left beachcomber-hero Thorn in a wheelchair, Hall bounces back with a new protagonist, Alexandra Rafferty, an appealing fourth-degree blackbelt, crime-scene photographer and all-around Miami PD femme Nikita. Shadowed by 18 years of guilt from the grisly aftermath of her rape at age 11, Alex is the loving caregiver to her father, an ex-cop befuddled by senility. Caught up in a series of serial killings of young women whose bodies are left in bizarre postures, Alex is unaware that her cretinoid husband, Stan, an armored car driver, is planning the perfect robbery. All hell breaks loose when a sexy pool-cleaner/ burglar (who keeps a pet cockroach in her pocket) chances on the scene and sees Stan's airhead mistress make off with two bags worth a cool million. When Alex's pixilated dad steals back the loot, most of the major elements of this whimsical action-packed plot are in place. The ensuing 600-mile chase takes Alex and dad to Seaside, the well-known planned community on the sugary beaches of the Florida panhandle. Forgiving the distracting, superfluous plot threads, Hall fans will be more than reimbursed by his poetic imagery in the landscapes and love scenes. Alex is a heroine with enough endearing attributes to sustain yet another long-running character series. $200,000 ad/promo; audio to Brilliance; author tour. Agent, Richard Pine; editor, Jenifer Weis. (Sept.) FYI: Seaside, Fla., was the location for the new Jim Carrey film, The Truman Show.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Value Priced; Abridged edition (October 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590865308
• ISBN-13: 978-1590865309
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,767,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book James W. Hall has written!!!!, December 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Shreveport, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Body Language (Hardcover)

When I heard that James Hall had written another book, I was all set to read another adventure of the Key Largo Beach Bum, Thorn. I must admit I was a little disappointed when I learned that Thorn would not be appearring in Body Language, but nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed the book!

Think you got problems? Consider Alexandra Rafferty, Crime Photographer for the Miami Police Department.

She was sexually assaulted at age 11.

Her husband is not only having an affair, but he's also planning an armoured car heist.

Her best friend is on the hit list of every anti-Castro Cuban organization in Miami.

Her live-in Dad is sufferring from severe memory lapses due to Alzheimers Disease.

She's on the run from a pair of gun-toting Whack-O's, one who's built like a Rhino and the other keeps a cochroach as a pet.

With all that on her mind how can she possibly help the police to capture a serial rapist? James Hall spins a suspense filled tale that takes the readers from the seedy back streets of Miami to the white sandy shores of the Florida Panhandle.

This book will keep you on the edge of your seat up to the final paragraph! If you've never read anything by James W. Hall, Body Language is a great place to start!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top-notch new book signals a different direction for Hall., January 19, 1999

By 

Craig Larson (Maple Grove, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Body Language (Hardcover)

Last night, I finished James W. Hall's latest novel, _Body Language_, which is something of a departure for him. Hall has an ongoing series featuring the character Thorn, a generally easygoing type, who spends his days tying sought-after flies for fishermen and is often dragged into all manner of violent and complicated situations involving an assortment of his old friends and lovers. The Thorn books are great and highly recommended.

In _Body Language_, Hall introduces a new character, Alexandra Collins, who is a photo technician with the Miami police department, spending her nightly shifts photographing murder scenes and apparently paying penance for a violent incident in her own past (which opens the book, by the way, so it's not much of a spoiler). This same incident appears to be coming back to haunt her, in the form of a series of rape- murders being committed by the "Bloody Rapist."

Most writers would be happy with this as the complete plot for a novel, but Hall only uses this as a starting point, adding a whole variety of other criminal activity into the mix. The whole is at times gruesome, but then the mood will quickly change to black comedy or to a very moving, emotional moment. Sure, there are some rough edges, particularly noticeable during the book's conclusion, but the whole is so well-written and comes off as a sort of mixture of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard's Florida-based crime stories.

Without my really realizing it, Hall has snuck in and become one of the few authors whose work I will snap up without reservation. The last Thorn novel, _Red Sky at Night_, made my ten-best list for 1998, and I would place _Body Language_ in my early forecast for best books of this year. For anyone who enjoys Carl Hiaasen or the work of Randy Wayne White, James W. Hall is another name in the pantheon of Florida-based crime writers to be added to your list.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zany South Florida mystery that is one of the best, November 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Body Language (Hardcover)

Forensic photographer Alexandra Rafferty buries herself in her gruesome work for the Miami police department as a means of forgetting the time she was raped as an eleven-year old. Recently, her father, a retired cop and the only person besides his daughter and the culprit who knows about that rape, is becoming forgetful due to Alzheimer's. Her spouse, a Brinks driver, is an idiot who robs an armored car.

As her personal life spins out of orbit, her professional life becomes more intense when a serial rapist-murderer takes front and center stage in Southern Florida. Before Alexandra realizes what is happening, she is on the lam with her father and the loot he stole from her spouse. Her husband, other crooks, and a vicious killer give chase as Alexandra heads to Seaside. Anyone of them is willing to eliminate Alexandra as a threat.

BODY LANGUAGE is as crazy as a tale gets without losing its sense of direction (from Miami north to the Panhandle). James W. Hall shows why he is one of the leading lights of the zany Southern Florida mysteries with a frenzied, yet exciting and detailed tale. The characters clearly make the show as all are fully motivated and a bit off-centered. Especially of note is three of the prime men in Alexandra's life: her father (his comments are dark comic relief), her spouse (using chaos theory to pull off his heist), and the killer (as bloody a rapist as one will read about). Mr. Hall continues to be one of the best mystery writers of non-stop thrillers.

Harriet Klausner