Outwitting Trolls: A Brady Coyne Novel (Brady Coyne Novels) [Hardcover]

William G. Tapply (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2010 | Series: Brady Coyne Novels

Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney who focuses on a few private clients and the legal drudgery of their everyday life, which leads to a generally unexciting life. Brady, however, gets a call from an old friend and former neighbor—a man from his past as a happily married man. When Brady was married and living in suburbia, Ken Nichols was his happily married neighbor. Both marriages fell apart years ago and Brady moved to Boston while Ken Nichols moved to Baltimore. Now a decade later and in Boston for a conference, Ken contacts Brady for a get-together and a drink. It’s an uneventful evening but the next day Brady gets a call from Nichols’ ex-wife. She’s standing in her ex’s hotel room, Nichols is lying dead on the floor of his room and she needs Brady’s help.

But this savage murder is only the first and Brady is soon trying to find the connection between these long ago friends and the savage murders dogging their family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Family secrets and emotional hangups dominate the comfortably satisfying 25th and final Brady Coyne novel from Tapply (1940–2009). When Sharon Nichols finds her veterinarian ex-husband, Ken, stabbed to death in a suburban Boston hotel room, she phones Brady, a former neighbor of the couple, who rushes to the scene. As Sharon's lawyer, Brady tries to redirect police suspicion away from his client by exploring the victim's entanglement in selling date-rape drugs while juggling bad debts. To put it mildly, Brady discovers that Ken and Sharon had a less than idyllic personal life. While trying to help the emotionally fragile Sharon hold herself together, Brady must also sort out his prickly relationship with his son and cope with the moods of his own current lover. Convincing characters and a pleasant New England setting enhance a genuine play-fair mystery, despite several false leads.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The late Tapply completed one last Brady Coyne novel before he died in 2009, and it’s a fitting finale to a fine series. As happens regularly, Boston lawyer Coyne is torn away from the comfortable routine of his easygoing practice by a friend in trouble. This time it’s the wife of a former neighbor, who calls Brady from a suburban hotel, where she is standing beside the body of her ex-husband, whom Brady had met the previous night for a drink. The police are interested in the wife, but Brady is convinced the murder has something to do with the couple’s disaffected children. The plot unwinds smoothly, but as always, what holds readers is Brady himself—the quintessential regular guy as sleuth, a man who likes his pleasures (fishing, food, the Red Sox, and the occasional beer) but whose sensitivity to human relationships hovers just below the surface of his amiable exterior. He will be sorely missed by fans of realistic crime fiction. Saying farewell to Brady Coyne is like losing a good friend. --Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (November 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312531273
• ISBN-13: 978-0312531270
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #481,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it!, November 10, 2010

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Outwitting Trolls: A Brady Coyne Novel (Brady Coyne Novels) (Hardcover)

I am a huge, huge fan of author William Tapply and I had been looking forward to reading Outwitting Trolls for the last year.

The thing about Tapply's books is that there is very little in the way of mayhem, car chases, sex, drugs and other "hooks" that can usually be found in mystery/thrillers. Rather, Tapply has always relied on strong character development and an interesting "whodunnit" to propel his story ahead.

In fact, lawyer Brady Coyne, who stars in most of Tapply's books (the Brady Coyne series anyway) is a wonderful, wonderful character that I have truly grown to love over the course of the years I have been reading Tapply's books. In reality, Brady Coyne is featured in 25 books - so I have had plenty of time to discover more about him AND to savor and enjoy each moment.

Outwitting Trolls is another example of a wonderfully crafted story that felt all too short to me. Brady is getting older, but is still a reflective, animal loving. calm force that I have discovered in previous books. He solves problems with sense and words - not with guns and violence.

The whoddunit is about figuring things out - about thinking instead of running around like a maniac. I had to admit that I did have the whole thing figured out by about halfway through the book but I just don't care - because a huge part of the fun for me is reading about Brady's life and how he seems to get himself into all kinds of weird situations.

If this review sounds a little bit gushy it is because I am very sad to say that Brady Coyne is no more. Author William Tapply passed away last year and as it is clearly indicated on his website and on the jacket of this book - Outwitting Trolls is the last "completed" Brady Coyne novel that has been found by Tapply's family. Of course, I immediately have started wondering about what "incomplete" manuscripts might be floating around, but I think that the Tapply family (although i don't know this for a fact) is gently telling his fans that Brady has passed away - along with Tapply.

It is a sign of how much I loved this character, that I actually have a tear in my eye - I swear, it feels as though Coyne has actually died.....

I feel privileged to have been able to read Tapply's last Brady Coyne novel. RIP William Tapply

Posted by Tina at 1:06 PM 1 comments Links to this post

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Man's Detective, December 27, 2010

By 

Mark Stevens (Denver) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outwitting Trolls: A Brady Coyne Novel (Brady Coyne Novels) (Hardcover)

"Outwitting Trolls" is such a great title. Based on William G. Tapply's crammed award shelf and the clever title, my hopes were high. This was apparently Tapply's last novel so I'm not sure if it's representative of all "Brady Coyne" novels. It's interesting to me that they aren't pegged as `Brady Coyne mysteries' because this one, at least, follows the standard mystery trajectory. Dead body in the first few pages, lawyer and cops spar over the investigation, lawyer works to clear the number one suspect, lawyer trips across another dead body and through good sleuth work and keen attention to detail, he figures out who really did it and then faces one potentially deadly confrontation at the end. Except for a couple of off-screen deaths, in fact, "Outwitting Trolls" is a non-violent mystery. Brady Coyne is as apt to grab a cold beer and sit on the back porch thinking about the problems with his case--or thinking about his relationship with his son, his ex or his current girlfriend--as he is to do anything else. He's a thinking man's detective. He has no apparent flaws. He loves his dog, will rescue orphan cats and refers a psychologically damaged wife of the murder victim to the best therapist in town. If you are seeking "action," seek elsewhere. Coyne follows the dots, takes things one step at a time. It's not a particularly complex puzzle, just one that requires work. Coyne has an idyllic home in downtown Boston and the scenes around the city, in Concord and in southern New Hampshire all ring true. (I grew up there.) The suspect list grows, the suspect list shrinks. Brady Coyne is never far in front of the reader and, except for the very last revelation, the reader is never in the dark. Even then, it's only for a brief moment. We see everything through Coyne's eyes and the view is steady, stable, easy-going. Your pulse will not pound (as an over-the-top blurb on other books might suggest) but you will be pleasantly entertained and spend time in the hands of a strong, clear-eyed storyteller. The "outwitting trolls" theme, alas, felt like a bit of a force-fit. This is so smoothly plotted I can't give it three stars. Maybe three-point-five.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Boston" Brady......, November 22, 2010

By 

Charlotte A. Danenberg - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outwitting Trolls: A Brady Coyne Novel (Brady Coyne Novels) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this final Brady Coyne novel.... suspense, action and the familiar routines with Brady and Henry, with Alex and Brady's family mixed in.... However, Brady and I both missed April trout fishing... I was sure that while he was chasing clues, he'd manage to wet a line.

Ann