Book Deal [Paperback]

Les Standiford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2002

Reluctant sleuth and Miami developer John Deal is the last of his kind--a builder who appreciates his craft. His friend Arch Dolan was the last of his kind, too, a Miami bookseller who sold books because he loved them. Now someone has killed him for it. And he's only the first body to fall. In quick succession the CEO of a huge bookstore chain and a local lawyer meet violent ends...and Deal starts finding connections.
Still, it's not easy for Deal: his estranged wife Janice, is still emotionally and physically scarred from mishaps the last time Deal stepped into the path of the wrong people. But Janice was close to Arch and she's as eager to find the killer as her husband. Working together, they discover that Arch's sister, lately employed by a charismatic revivalist, has disappeared. With the clues pointing north, Deal and Janice set out on a journey to a distant and frigid climate, one that threatens to chill them out for good.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The best installment in a first-rate thriller series...Standiford serves up crackerjack action and memorable characters." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

About the Author

Les Standiford has written eleven books, including Spill (released as a feature film), Done Deal, Book Deal,  Black Mountain, Deal With the Dead, Bone Key and the most recent in the eight-book John Deal Series, Havana Run, as well as a recent Book Sense 76 Pick in non-fiction, Last Train to Paradise.   He has received the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and an NEA Fellowship in Fiction. He is Director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University in Miami, where he lives with his wife Kimberly, a psychotherapist, and their three children.

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (March 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590580125
• ISBN-13: 979-1590580126
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,082,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slightly Different Deal, September 30, 2004

By 

Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Book Deal (Paperback)

I ran into deal about a year ago in a bookshop on Marathon Key. The owner knows his Florida mystery authors and tipped me to the Deal series. I have since been working the series and came across Book Deal recently. (apparently it is a reissue of a novel previously published under a differen title. but I could not quite figure this out.) Deal, as everyone who reads the series knows, is the former policeman son of developer father who has (maybe) killed himself. He has taken over the almost bankrupt family business and has begun to establish himself as an honest restorer/developer of historicaly important architectural structures. (Usually the occupation of the bad guy in South Florida novels, and with good reason if you've seen most of their work in the Keys.) Deal's misadventures have led to attempts on the life of his wife, Janice, as well as himself, and she suffers the anomie of severely harmed victims. Thus these novels constantly return to the theme of the adventures of separated but not single Deal and his ex-partner and buddy now P.I. Driscoll, who regularly encounter ladies with a variety of motivations.In one novel an old girlfriend, in another a Anti-Castro cuban, and so forth.

This novel opens as Deal encounters Janice who is working in an old-fashioned bookstore owned by his friend Arch in one of those rambling strip stores along Red Road or Bird Drive on the edge of Coral Gables. The machinations of a large corporation to build a Superstore across the street eventually leads to a string of murders in which one character's association with another takes Deal and Janice across town (to the Capone suite in the renovated Biltmore) to across the country ( a computerized cathedral in Omaha - where Arch's sister worked as a programmer.) One bit of fun is the Ma and Pa hit team. - We never do see the outcome, but when Pa, celebrating a hit by playing golf for the first time, is constantly harassed by a pushy player just as his putt sinks, he leaves with a driver but returns empty handed.- And his frumpy wife , the kick boxer, is a fright.

The conclusion, in a blizzard in Omaha, is enough to make anyone accustomed to Winter escapes to forgive the Sunshine state for any and all hurricanes. A great, suspensful conclusion. And by the way, Deal and Janice's (maybe) reconciliation scene in the kitchen about midway through the book is a hot, comic bit of erotica. All in all, this book has a bit of everything and in nice proportion. If you like the Deal series,you'll really like this one.