Black female police detective Marti MacAlister and her partner Jessenovik return to investigate the murder of a deacon of a local Baptist church, an investigation that Marti finds uncomfortable as it involves a good friend's family.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
When you die on a Friday night in Lincoln Prairie, Ill., the way Deacon Henry Hamilton did, your body lies in bed all day Saturday--time enough for the Mt. Gethsemane choir, 40 strong, to traipse through your house on their way home from rehearsal, find your body, console your widow, and wipe out all the forensic evidence. So investigating officers Marti McAlister and Vik Jessenovik (Slow Burn, 1993) don't have anything to go on but gossip about Henry's family, and that's altogether too revealing. Seems that Henry, a pedophile who abused his stepdaughters, Denise and Belle, when they were five years old, may have been getting interested in his daughter Terri Whittaker's four-year-old girl, Zaar--and might have been poisoned or smothered (medical evidence points to both) by a family member with a long memory or a fearful imagination. Incompetent Lt. Howie Sikich, temporarily reassigned from Procurement, presses Marti to arrest her friend Denise, but Vik trumps Howie's high-level contacts long enough to extract a confession from a more unlikely source. Probably the most low-key tale of murder and child abuse you've ever encountered. No wonder Marti and Vik are able to keep the entire case contained within Lincoln Prairie's close-knit black community. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Eleanor Taylor-Bland: A Well-Kept Secret Worth Telling,
By A Customer
This review is from: Gone Quiet (Paperback)
This is the first book I read in the Marti MacAllister series. I'd never heard of Eleanor Taylor Bland; the cover of the book caught my eye. I'm so glad I found this series and started with this book. I LOVE the fact that Taylor-Bland didn't create Marti as some tough-cop chic; she can be tough but, more accurately, she's a 3-dimensional person (as much as a fictional character can be) with the struggles we all have and then some. As an African-American woman, I can appreciate Taylor-Bland addressing the racism and sexism Marti faced by white males in her former department without beating us over the head with messages. I especially appreciated the background information about Marti's life with her husband before his death because it helps realize the depth of her and her children's loss as they attempt to establish a sense of normalcy in his absence. In fact, the details about each character and their traditions (family, language, racial/ethnic, etc.) allowed me to see their surroundings more clearly and look at situations through their eyes -- even when I was most disgusted with them. The actual mystery grabbed me from the beginning! Again, background information is very important to the development of this story. As the plot develops and more facts are revealed, you will change your mind a thousand times about all the characters. I was a little disappointed with who the killer was and how that information came about, but I got over it as I looked at the overall circumstances. Needless to say, I am quite impressed with this series. Gone Quiet remains my favorite in the Marti MacAllister series (Hey! I'm nostalgic; cut me a break!). :-)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One Word------Boring,
This review is from: Gone Quiet (Paperback)
After reading all of Bland's books, I have to say this is the most boring of the series. It did not offer any excitement and on top of that, was predictable.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A FAMILY AFFAIR,
This review is from: Gone Quiet (Paperback)
Deacon Hamilton was an upright stalwart member of his church and a stern patriarch of his family. His death in bed was thought to be from a fatal disease. A routine investigation reveals more. Hamilton did not die from a disease or natural causes. Someone murdered him.Enter detectives Marti and Vik as they attempt to solve the murder of this well respected man who is the stepfather of one of their juvenile probation officers. A case like this sounds easy but Marti and Vik run into a quagmire of silence, old hatreds and hidden family secrets. Hamilton was not all that he appeared to be. To make matters worse the list of suspects grows to the point of including their colleague. You will enjoy this murder mystery as Marti and Vik attempt to unravel years of pain and denial in a family affair gone awry. Issues of abuse, rejection and low self esteem impregnant the Deacon's family, all of whom had a motive to kill him. Which one. I enjoyed this thriller and loved the way Bland handled a sensitive topic all to often kept under wraps. The main weakness of the text was its predictable characters and useless subplots that didn't add to the story. Other than those defects Bland gave us an engaging tale which causes us to take a look at the hidden family secrets that we may carry.
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