Running for Shelter (A Laura Principal mystery) [Paperback]

Michelle Spring (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996 | Series: A Laura Principal mystery

For Laura Principal, private investigator, life couldn't be better. Then, at the home of a wealthy client, Laura leaves a cherished photo with the maid, only for the maid to disappear 24 hours later. Where has she gone, and why do her employers deny that she ever existed?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Trendy, saxophone-playing PI Laura Principal, introduced in Every Breath You Take, finds herself caught up in one of London's seamier subcultures in a fast-paced adventure that stumbles on elements of motivation. Thomas Butler is a roly-poly West End producer who manages to stage plays that offer biting social commentary while making a pile of money. Because someone has been stealing from the cast and crew backstage during rehearsals of his current production, he calls Principal. On a routine follow-up visit to his posh London townhouse, Principal encounters a young Filipina domestic, Maria Flores, who pleads for her help in collecting wages from a former employer. But when Principal returns several days later, the girl is gone. More unsettling still, Butler?shedding his charming manner?claims he doesn't know whom Principal is talking about. As she hunts for Maria Flores, the PI is drawn into the anguished lives of undocumented workers living as virtual slaves in the homes of London's rich and venal. None of which seems to provide her with some much-needed perspective as she agonizes over how much of her soul she stands to lose should she vacation in Provence with her business partner and love interest, Sonny Mendlowitz, and his children. Spring's offering is carefully plotted, but Principal's meditations on friendship and on the gap between rich and poor are way too easy.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A second juggling act, and quite an unbalanced one, for Cambridge inquiry agent Laura Principal (Every Breath You Take, 1994). With one hand, she's supposed to solve the mystery of the missing properties at rehearsals for Thomas Butler's new West End play, and with the other, she's to figure out who entered Marcia Shields's house with a key and left with several uninsured paintings. Life gets even more complicated when the first of these cases boomerangs, as the Filipina servant Laura spoke to at Butler's house disappears, along with any acknowledgment by Butler's family that she ever existed. Though Butler wastes no time in pulling Laura off the theater robberies (a disappointing loose end), she's determined to track down Marilou Flores, the missing Butler maid--and then, after the Kensington police find Marilou fatally bashed and trashed, to track down her killer. Treading perilously near the same trails as Ruth Rendell's nonpareil Simisola (1995), Laura discovers the same brutal truths about the ways ``British immigration rules provide structural support for slavery.'' But there's nowhere near as much at stake in the Shields robberies, whose solution Spring saves for last. One case is clever, then, the other deeply felt, though Spring, unlike Rendell, never does manage to meld both kinds of interest together. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Orion mass market paperback (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075280314X
• ISBN-13: 978-0752803142
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This author is a great new talent, June 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: RUNNING FOR SHELTER (Paperback)

London private investigator Laura Principal, co-owner of the Aardvark
Investigation Agency, has more than enough to do in both her personal and
professional lives. Her partner and lover, Sonny Mendlowitz, is pressuring
the gun-shy Laura for a deeper commitment. Her best friend Helen wants her to
stay more often at their jointly owned cottage in the country. Finally, her
workload is just about to the point of massive overload. Yet when a Filipino
girl, who works for one of Laura's clients, mysteriously disappears, Laura is
compelled to learn what happened to her.

.....The investigation initially appears doomed to failure when her clients. the
Butlers, deny any knowledge of the missing girl. Luckily, Laura finds a
neighbor who disputes the Butlers' claim and witnessed the girl being
forcibly taken from her employer's house. By the time the missing girl's body
is found, Laura has amassed an array of suspects who could have done the
deed. As Laura digs further into finding the murderer, she places her life
and the lives of two innocents on the line.

......Laura is a fascinating woman of the nineties, confident in her ability to
perform her job even though it can turn dangerous without a warning. Still
she is uncertain in her personal life. Michelle Spring makes her heroine come
alive and, in doing so, has the audience rooting for her every step of the
way. Running for Shelter is a cozy British police procedural, long on
investigation, but short on action. It is a cerebral mystery that challenges
and entertains the reader quite nicely.
.....Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another side of England, March 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Running for Shelter: A Laura Principal Mystery (Laura Principal Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Michelle Spring has a wonderful talent for handling dark and challenging subjects in a way that is not depressing or grim. In Running for Shelter, she tackles the subject of slavery in modern England with a deft hand. What I love best about this series is the keen appreciation Spring has for English culture. Every phrase, every description illuminates in some way, without being overdone, and the overall portrait of the country and culture is an authentic and even-handed one. She has written about a newsworthy and frightening topic without getting on a soapbox or digressing into lectures. This is an entertaining and suspenseful mystery that will also leave you wondering about what "civilization" really means.