Death and Faxes [Hardcover]

Leslie O'Kane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1996

While visiting her childhood home in upstate New York, cartoonist Molly Masters receives an ominous letter from her least-favorite high-school teacher, who then dies mysteriously, a communication that leads to death threats, revelations of old secrets, and murder.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This witty, sometimes cynical, debut introduces Molly Masters, a greeting card designer who returns to her hometown in upstate New York while her engineer husband is sent on a job in the Philippines. With their two young children in tow, Molly starts up a faxable-greeting service and reunites with her lifelong friend, Lauren. She receives a note from a high-school teacher whom she had satirized in a poem in the school newspaper years before, but before Molly responds, the woman dies. Molly gets a series of faxes implying that she is responsible for the teacher's death and threatening her and her children. Nearly everywhere she turns, Molly encounters members of her graduating class who remember the nasty poem: Tommy Newton, a nerd who is now the investigating police officer; "Miss Popularity," Stephanie Saunders, the current PTA president; football hero Jack Vance, who has become the elementary school principal. When a classmate's husband is murdered, Molly's suspicions focus on all the nearby alums. Peppered by Molly's greeting card brainstorms, O'Kane's engaging mystery takes a slanted, entertaining glance at high-school figures we all loved to hate.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This first novelist's protagonist, Molly Masters, designs and markets fax cartoons. When she and her two small children return to her childhood home, death threats begin arriving on her fax machine. The messages foreshadow the demise of her once hated high school English teacher and the murder of her best friend's husband. When police arrest her friend for murder, Molly launches an inquisition. She balances kids, former friends, and the underhandedness of the murderer. Full of lightweight antics and heavily influenced by domestic demands and descriptions of fax cartoons. A marginal purchase.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312139608
• ISBN-13: 978-0312139605
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #777,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and disturbing at the same time, March 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Death And Faxes (A Molly Masters Mystery) (Paperback)

This book was considerably better than I had expected it to be, and while Molly's fax cards were somewhat amusing, I just didn't think this book was as humorous as it was intended to be. The theme of Molly returning to her childhood home and dealing with all the people she couldn't stand in high school gave the story a dark tone that was at odds with the feeling that I was supposed to be laughing. It also seemed that O'Kane couldn't decide whether to make charicatures of the old high school stereotypes or delve beneath the surface, so when she did try for a deeper examination, the character interactions seemed unrealistic.

The mystery itself, though, was quite solid and shows promise for the series.