Conviction: A Mystery [Hardcover]

Elise Title (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2004

As the superintendent of a Massachusetts prison halfway house, Natalie Price thought she'd seen it all. But when the death of a beautiful Boston socialite makes breaking news, Natalie is drawn into one of the biggest scandals of her career.

Headlines reveal that the victim is a member of a secretive, high-class call girl service and it seems that her death was related to these extra-curricular activities. When a group of extremely powerful men are implicated as her clients, the question on everyone's mind becomes, Is one of these pillars of society her murderer?

In fact, one of the men unmasked by the media is Natalie Price's boss, Deputy Commissioner of Corrections Steven Carlyle. Nat and Carlyle don't exactly get along, but she wonders if he's capable of murder.

With a dead young woman front and center in Nat's mind, and the promise of more to follow, she heads undercover into a seedy and dangerous world, putting her own life at risk in order to discover the truth. Once again Elise Title's remarkable storytelling talent shines in this gripping, gritty novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Title's third novel to feature Boston corrections officer Natalie "Nat" Price offers more developed characters and a more believable plot than last year's uneven Inside Out. When an SUV mows down socialite/call girl Jessica Asher outside the townhouse where she entertained her clients, Price's boss, Deputy Commissioner Stephen Carlyle, is suspect number one. Apparently, Asher was blackmailing him with steamy photographs snapped surreptitiously during their trysts. As if that weren't enough, Price also has to contend with an unwanted pregnancy, a feud with rising policewoman Fran Robie and Carlyle's own sons, the disabled Alan and the thuggish Sean—but she never loses her compassion, which seems genuine, not an author's device. During the eulogy she delivers at a memorial service, "Nat was terrified that if she surrendered to the pain of this loss—any one loss—she might collapse under the agony of all the others." Several times, she goes undercover as a call girl—donning a blonde wig, padded bra and designer clothes—to interact, unrecognized, with people she's met in her investigation. This strains credibility a little, but doesn't detract from keeping this a fun, deft book, continuously addictive and puzzling until its last sentences.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the third Natalie Price novel, a socialite is murdered, and a sexual scandal is uncovered: the victim is part of a high-class call-girl service. Could Price's boss, the deputy commissioner of corrections (and, apparently, one of the victim's clients), be a killer? To find the answer, Price, a corrections officer, goes undercover and exposes the underbelly of vice lurking just beneath the surface of polite society. Like Iris Johansen and Tammy Hoag, Title has made the genre leap from romance to mystery, and it hasn't always been the most graceful of leaps. It has taken her a while to flesh out her style and characters from the strictly formulaic Harlequin fare she turned out for years. But this is the third Natalie Price novel, and though there may be a patch of unpolished prose here and there, the book's premise is solid, the characters are decently well drawn, and the narrative moves forward at a good clip. Hoag and Johansen took a while to hit their strides, too, and look at them now. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312318200
• ISBN-13: 978-0312318208
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,972,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Beach/Vacation Read, July 25, 2004

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conviction: A Mystery (Hardcover)

In 1994 Elise Title was still writing Harlequin Romances. In 1996 she turned a page and penned ROMEO, a chilling psychosexual thriller that readers still find riveting. Then, a few years later, she published what would be the first in a new series starring Natalie (Nat) Price. CONVICTION is the third offering in that series.

Price is a savvy law enforcement officer, employed by the state of Massachusetts as the superintendent of Horizon House, a halfway house for prisoners. But when Jessica Asher, a call girl with a high society clientele, is murdered, a tsunami-like scandal breaks in the wake of her death. The tidal wave of public slander could reach into the secret lives of a coterie of powerful men who comprise the movers and shakers in Boston's hoi polloi.

Nat's boss is the Deputy Police Commissioner who liaises between the Corrections Department and the Parole Board. He is a married man and the father of two sons, who Asher was blackmailing. When he emerges as "the suspect most likely," the head of the Department of Corrections wants Natalie to investigate. Could Asher have had her hooks into others with deep pockets and trysts to hide? The only way to find out is to enter her world.

So it won't surprise readers when Natalie goes undercover as a call girl. Adorned in a wig, draped in designer clothes and "faking it" with a padded bra, Price enters Jessica Asher's dangerous playground. Her sleuthing takes her to some of the darkest spots in Boston's vice-ridden underbelly. Things move quickly in this shadowy place, and Natalie has little time to reflect upon how ironic it is that her life is in danger for a man she doesn't even like.

Title is still honing her skills as a writer of police procedurals and has not entirely reprised her startling performance in ROMEO. CONVICTION has its share of melodrama, which emerges when her hero faces a clearly unplanned and unwanted pregnancy; when she becomes involved in an imbroglio of wills with a female colleague; and when she puts the two Carlyle sons, one a disabled man and the other a thug, directly in the line of the investigation into their father's seamy love life. On the debit side, Natalie Price is a compassionate woman and a good law enforcement officer who has her priorities in order. She displays a strong penchant for fairness and getting things done. These qualities work to define her, and if the series continues, she should become even more finely limned.

Elise Title has the ability to write and to tell a story. Both ROMEO and CONVICTION are proof of that and attest to the fact that she also has talent and imagination. With a bit more honing and perhaps a return to more complicated plots, she has a good chance of winning an audience of mystery readers who expect interesting stories, fully believable characters, a fast-paced narrative and sophisticated prose. This book is a perfect beach/vacation read, and in her next appearance, Natalie Price hopefully will appear in full blossom.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put it Down!, June 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Conviction: A Mystery (Hardcover)

I loved this book. Conviction is a magnificent mystery, never a dull moment, so intriguing I couldn't put it down till the end. Nat Price is such a cool character to follow. Can't wait for the next book in the series!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dive right in!!!, June 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Conviction: A Mystery (Hardcover)

Excellent read. Enticing characters and engaging story that keeps you turning the page. I missed the first two in Elise's series, so I'm looking forward to catching up on her other works as well!