4.0 out of 5 stars
Murder Comes to Palm Springs, May 10, 2006
This review is from: Cafe Respect: a mystery novel (Paperback)
Had Ms. Anna Beth Roper, the proprietess of Cafe Respect, suspected complications with the baggage of the homeless drifter, drop dead gorgeous Laura Bellows who dressed like a New England debutant, she'd have headed for the San Jacinto mountains faster than an Olympian gold medalist. Instead, she gave the young woman a job as waitress to replace another who'd quit simply by vanishing. Still, Ms. Roper would surely have thought twice about adding Laura to her menagerie had she known that her previous waitress lay under the drifting sand not two miles away with a dagger lodged in her pretty neck.
Indeed, the peculiar magnet she had that attracted unusual humans had populated her diner with a singular collection of strays, customers as well as employees. Manny Ortiz, the Hispanic cook, offered up indescribably half-Spanish/half-American concoctions, not the least of which was his daily fare of Chili Cinnamon breakfast rolls so piquante they'd bring tears to a grown man's eyes. Not to be outdone for queerness, Honey, the Cafe Respect cashier, warbled a bizarre mixture of song and bird calls as she added up the meal check for each diner. Curly Bill Smuin, as bald as a billiard cue, sported an endless repertoire of fedoras to top off his shiny pate while another patron, Ramon Patencio, a native of the Cohuilla Indiana Band, owners of the town's largest gambling casino, had never been seen without sartorial splendor from the town's most exclusive haberdashers. Although he'd been a regular breakfast client from the cafe's earliest days, no one knew just what role he played in tribal affairs or for that matter what he did at the Casino where he spent his time seven nights a week.
As the story unfolds, we learn that Laura has a past as checkered as linoleum tile. It seems the young woman had left university studies in botany for a job as a high priced courier for an unnamed company. While her job description did not seem to include prostitution, Laura allowed herself to dally between the sheets when a gentleman contact had that certain energy that has brought men and women together since the beginning of time. We also come to know that her appearance in Palm Springs was not just a random choice of vacation retreats: in fact, Laura has been sent to Palm Springs and the Cafe Respect on a mission.
As the bodies begin to pile up, unrelated to one another save for the knife/throat handiwork, the Cafe Respect is caught up in a maelstrom of its habitues, Roper and company, and a tangle of local police with the added confusion of the FBI and a shoot out rivaling the Okay Coral.
Two features most distinguish Steve Scott's writing, his "writerly" style and his way of bringing together some of the most improbable characters you'll ever meet in the same plot. No one ever brought the desert to life more vividly than Mr. Scott and no one else could make me believe in a Native American shaman in a business suit and an honest-to-God seance wielding spritualist with a daughter who sings out poety about a restaurant bill. Scott does it and you'll "suspend incredulity" in the pages of his novel, Cafe Respect.
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