Wallace, who edits the award-winning Sisters In Crime anthologies, has created a very credible central character for her own seventh novel (after 1996's Lost Angel). Competent, strong and credible, Claudia Miller is an independent building contractor in Manhattan who works off worries about current and future projects by cutting into blocks of marble. Wallace's skill at establishing her main character's powerful presence carries readers a long way into a complicated story of perverse revenge. Unfortunately, however, the plot soon sags into predictability. The relatives of people who worked with Claudia on the renovation of a building on New York's Mercer Street several years earlier are being killed off in ways connected to electricity (e.g., suffocated with electrical tape or electrocuted in various apparent accidents). Her father and young stepbrother are also attacked. Meanwhile, various rogue males who might well be the hotwired killer enter the picture: a strange writer from California; a pushy and sexist union organizer; a new employee very eager to please; a slick Russian entrepreneur. Claudia remains surrounded by a charge of energy, outshining her supporting cast and calling for a stronger vehicle to star in. (Feb).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Murder by electrical tape is the first of several crimes faced by Claudia Miller, a Manhattan building contractor trying to build her reputation and protect her colleagues from a villain who dispatches the relatives of those he hates. It doesn't take long (given the flashbacks helpfully provided by the author) for us to realize that Claudia's face-down of a union organizer earlier in her career and his subsequent death in a suspicious fire are the flashpoints for the killer's psychosis. The murderer might be the charming young man she has bumped into, or perhaps a new member of the work crew. Or could it be the sophisticated and mysterious Mikhail, a possible future client? Unfortunately, this novel fails to rise above the ordinary. Claudia's occupation is an interesting twist on the current trend of nontraditional careers for women detectives, but she is so controlled and insensitive that we cannot develop much sympathy for her. Worse, the identity of the criminal is revealed, not through clues but through his actions. Not a necessary purchase.?Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Info. Svcs., Inc., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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