The Late Man [Paperback]

James Preston Girard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1994

In mid-eighteenth-century Connecticut, members of one courageous and determined family struggle to build new lives and create a homestead called Marshfield. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Girard (who wrote A Killing in Kansas under a pseudonym) offers a smart suspense novel about efforts to solve the grisly murder of a college student.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Six years after a series of four brutal murders of young women outside Wichita, Kansas, the killer is at it again--or is he? Sam Haun, late-night man at the local paper, the Mid-American, who's been dredged out of mourning his wife and daughter, killed a year ago in a traffic accident, and assigned to dog Homicide Capt. L.J. Loomis on the case, wonders whether the most recent killing could be a copycat crime. As the investigation narrows down to focus on Kirby Banks, a cyclist who's done time for assaulting a prostitute, Sam, discovering a journal that recounts his late wife's affair with reporter Frank Rule, imagines an affair he might share with Frank's current lover, his junior colleague Stosh Babicki--and imagines too, more and more vividly, what it would be like to be in the killer's place. In this understated hardcover debut, Girard artfully inverts the conventions of the whodunit to ask instead, who really wants to know? -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Onyx; Reprint edition (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451405889
• ISBN-13: 978-0451405883
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,192,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Painfully Slow, January 26, 2011

By 

PSK - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Late Man (Paperback)

I got hooked into the story very early but it quickly looses steam. There were some interesting storylines for sure and I did find it moving at times. The writing is good and there is a great deal of character development but the plot takes a back seat and the story just seems to drag. I was not thrilled with the resolution of the "mystery" but as reviews will tell you it is certainly not the focus of the story. Perhaps it just my preference for plot based novels but I was happy to move on to something different.

5.0 out of 5 stars More than Just a Mystery, May 27, 2000

By 

"librarianofthefuture" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Late Man (Paperback)

Girard has an ability I usually don't find in this genre, to give detail of settings and people to make you feel you are there along side them. Rather than the typical supreficial, get to the story nature of mysteries, it goes several levels deeper. The people become very real and you care about them as much as you care about whodunnit. The people are not some stereotype. The weaving of contrasts and similarities between the three main characters puts us on a level with them, we've all been there in some way. What starts out as bleak lives, mistakes are made, hope is lost, leaves the reader feeling there is a future. I can't wait for his new novel to come out.

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written novel with a genre heart, December 18, 1997

By 

C. McQuary (Vancouver, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Late Man (Paperback)

"The Late Man" is an elegiac, beautifully written novel whose story happens to fit the constraints of genre. But to say that it is not strictly speaking a "genre novel" is meant as praise; this is a beautiful book that sneaks up on you and lingers with you long after you have turned the last page. I recommend this book to all "genre" lovers- be they crime novels, detective novels, or murder mysteries- who want a little more weight, a little more feeling with their entertainments. "The Late Man" makes me hope that this was not a one shot from Mister Girard; that many more novels of this caliber will issue forth from him.