Dark Lady [Import] [Paperback]

Richard North Patterson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Hutchinson (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0091802407
• ISBN-13: 978-0091802400
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)

More About the Author

RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON is the author of The Spire, Eclipse and fourteen other bestselling and critically acclaimed novels. Formerly a trial lawyer, he was the SEC liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor and has served on the boards of several Washington advocacy groups. He lives in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Dr. Nancy Clair.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Murder and Corruption in a Tired Town, January 28, 2000

By 

Coalpuss "coalpuss" (Winter Park, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Lady (Hardcover)

Like other reviewers, I was also disappointed with Richard North Patterson's "Dark Lady." When you can't be truly interested in the characters it is difficult to become involved in their lives. It took about half of the book for it to really get moving and even then it was too late, because we already knew what was going to happen. I personally am getting very tired of authors deciding to 'kill the cat' or the dog for that matter. I don't enjoy predictable books and this one didn't even begin to stretch my mind. I surely hope RNP will take some more time, if that's what it takes, to get back to his former stature. I did enjoy "No Safe Place" unlike the critics, but this one should not have been published, at least under his real name.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patterson has done it again, August 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Dark Lady (Mass Market Paperback)

Dark Lady starts with a bang and never lets up. The crime is startling and complex,the legal atmosphere authentic. Patterson uses his trial lawyer's gifts to create a character in Stella Marz who seems to turn the pages by herself. Patterson again deals with real issues most writers shy away from. He never pulls his punches and Dark Lady is a knockout.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The fine line between cop and criminal, November 24, 1999

By 

Cityview (Des Moines, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Lady (Hardcover)

If you've read one of Richard North Patterson's previous suspense/crime novels (among them, "Silent Witness," "Eyes of a Child," "Degree of Guilt"), you know him to be a first-rate storyteller. His law degree guarantees fine details of prosecution. His experience as a fictioneer shows that every time he asks himself "What if?" he comes up with a stunning new plot line. Patterson has special talent for terse and telling dialogue. As real-life crime becomes more bizarre, crime writers must dream up more complicated and grisly narratives. Patterson succeeds here, too. The setting of his new novel is the fictional city of Steelton. Stella Marz, the narrator and heroine, is a determined lady who works her way out of a turbid working-class background and through law school to become an assistant county prosecutor, head of the homicide unit. The "Dark Lady" of the title, she's an intriguing female who can hold her own in an all-male enclave. Jack Novak, Stella's onetime employer and former lover, is first introduced as a mutilated corpse dangling from his closet door. He's wearing a garter belt, stockings and high heels. Next, an officer in the development company building Steelton's stadium is found dead in bed from a heroin overdose. He's got a needle in his arm and a dead prostitute at his side. What's particularly horrifying is that victims' lives and reputations do not match their modes of death. Political corruption in Steelton and deceitful colleagues in the homicide unit make Stella's self-appointed task of solving the two murders a formidable challenge. Let the squeamish reader beware: Patterson's novels are always hypnotic, with in-your-face situations that make you blink. On the other hand, fans of psychological/suspense drama will relish the good read Patterson always provides.