Body of Truth [Hardcover]

David Lindsey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 1992

Houston homicide detective Stuart Haydon receives a call from a frazzled private investigator and flies to Guatemala to help him find the daughter of a wealthy businessman, in a violent and strangely surreal Central American netherworld. 100,000 first printing. Major ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lindsey's likable detective Stuart Haydon, last seen in In the Lake of the Moon , leaves his Texas home territory in this scorching indictment of human rights abuses in Guatemala. Lena Muller is a Houston girl gone missing in the surreal political jumbles of Latin America. Haydon's old buddy, ex-cop turned PI Jim Fossler, was hired to find her, but he has stumbled onto more than he can handle. Haydon flies down to help the shaken Fossler, finding only a blood-spattered motel room and ex-CIA agent Taylor Cage, now an independent spook in business for the money. He leads Haydon to a Dr. Grajeda, who performs autopsies on the corpses of the officially "disappeared," and who had worked with Lena during her Peace Corps stint. Haydon pursues leads with tenacity, finding that Lena had helped the rebels get the goods on viciously corrupt generals. All parties--Cage, Grajeda, a State Dept . bigwig and Haydon--race to locate Lena's evidence. The problem with Haydon's quest, as Grajeda points out, is that documented truth is just evidence collected and assembled "into a body of 'truth' that really is not the truth at all." And seeing the "body of truth" only through Haydon's eyes constricts the narrative's dramatic momentum. On the plus side, Lindsey creates a vibrant setting for the cat-and-mouse games totalitarian despots play. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Houston detective Stuart Haydon enters the Guatemalan underground to help a PI on the track of a missing Texas woman.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 417 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (April 18, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385248148
• ISBN-13: 978-0385248143
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,449,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Lindsey has published 14 novels in the mystery, thriller, suspense, and spy genres. He began his writing career in 1983 by publishing two mystery novels in the same year. One of those novels, "A Cold Mind" featuring Houston homicide detective, Stuart Haydon, has been called by reviewers "one of the best suspense novels of all time"; and "a classic of the genre." Lindsey began working closely with the Houston Homicide Division for his research, and by the late 1980s Lindsey had written four Haydon novels.

In 1988 he changed directions and began extensive research for a novel that would become one of the first to be published about a then new criminal phenomenon, the serial killer. Published in 1990, "Mercy" became an international bestseller. In 1992 the German television network Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), featured Lindsey in an hour-long special program in their "Literature and Culture" series. "Mercy" was optioned for a feature film production, and remained under option for over a decade before it was finally filmed and premiered on HBO in April 2000.

In 1992 "Body of Truth", the fifth and last novel to feature Stuart Haydon, was published and won Germany's Bochumer Krimi Archiv award for the best suspense novel of the year. Lindsey turned to international settings with "Requiem for a Glass Heart" (1996) and "The Color of Night" (1999). The first novel dealt with international crime, while the second was set in the world of spies and international intelligence. "The Rules of Silence", Lindsey's twelfth novel was published in 2003, and was the first to be set in his home city, Austin. It was immediately bought outright by Universal Studios for a feature film production.

After publishing his thirteenth novel, Lindsey spent the next several years pursuing two large teleplay projects before his curiosity brought him back to novels in 2007. He began researching the astonishing rise of the government's outsourcing of national intelligence. Silently, and out of sight, privatized spying had become a multi-billion dollar industry in the years following 9/11. The industry's growth has been so explosive that private contractors now command over 70% of the nation's entire intelligence budget. Some of the corporations have become information industry giants with government contracts in the billions of dollars annually.

Lindsey thought this subject was tailor-made for long form fiction, but he soon realized that the story he wanted to tell was too large to be encompassed in a single volume. In 2011 Lindsey, writing under the pseudonym Paul Harper, published "Pacific Heights", the first volume in a serial novel featuring former intelligence officer Marten Fane. "Sorrow's Spy", the second volume in the Marten Fane Story serial novel will be published in 2012.

Lindsey researches and writes his novels in his library, which is adjacent to his home in Austin, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great thriller, December 20, 2002

By 

Timothy Henderson (Montgomery, AL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Body of Truth (Paperback)

I can't quite understand the negative reviews this book seems to be getting here. I think it may well be the best thriller I've read. I've spent a fair amount of time in Guatemala, and I'd say Lindsey may overstate the menacing atmosphere a bit, it is hard to look at Guatemala's recent history and fault him for this. A great book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Half as long would have been plenty, March 4, 2001

By 

El Capitan (Webster, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Body of Truth (Paperback)

I struggled through the interminable descriptions of stench, of fountains bubbling in the background, of statues, wrought iron gates, you name it, Lindsey can write two paragraphs on it.

After 80 pages, I started skipping the paragraphs that were desciptive filler. I gave up by chapter 17.

If ever there were a book that would make me believe the author was being paid by the word, it would be this one. Had some of those words actually created a spark of interest in the characters, I might have pressed on.

Perhaps Lindsey has written better books. Too bad this was my first encounter with his writing. It will be my last.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars He doesn't know what he is writing, February 5, 2001

By 

Min-Seong, Jean (kyunggido South Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Body of Truth (Paperback)

How could a book like this be published? Yes, He has been to Guatemala. Yes, He knows the structure of the city precisely. Yes, He invested his time and money preparing for the novel. DOES THAT MEAN I HAVE TO THREAD THROUGH ALL THE DESCRIPTION ABOUT THE CITY FOR MORE THAN 300 PAGES? He wrote pretty well at the beginning. But as the story went on he lost balance and wasted too much effort on city and landscape description. DON'T TRY TO READ THIS ONE. NEVER!