Customer Reviews

Scott Free: A Crime Novel

5 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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I loved this book. Great suspense and fun without the sickening grisly stuff that most crime novels have. Instead, a main character who is unusually interesting and one I want to read more about. I think Meaker has a great serial character here. Loved the Hamptons setting ... lots of insight. I couldn't put the book down. Highly recommend.

It's been too long since we've had a Vin Packer novel. But not too long for Packer who, after fifty years, still has an eye for character and place. The plot is good, too. And it's also funny. What more could you want?

There's no predicting where this novel will go. You think you've got it, but then you're so wrong. This is one of those novels where things never go right for the criminals.

The transgendered sleuth is a nice woman. You like her. And although her worries of being discovered are there they never overwhelm the plot.

I hope this is the beginning of a series.

In the fifties and sixties, Vin Packer was the queen of paperback originals, writing a score of riveting suspense novels in a style that compared favorably to John O'Hara. Now, a full half-century after making her fictional debut, Packer (otherwise known as Marijane Meaker and young-adult author M. E. Kerr) is back with her first hardcover novel. It is "Vin"-tage Packer!

The crime elements of the story will keep mystery fans turning the pages (the "MacGuffin" here is a ring that once belonged to the Duchess of Windsor), but what really sets this novel apart are the vivid portraits of a dozen or more fully-realized characters, led by a transgendered investigator, Scott (aka Scotti) House. Packer has always had a fascination with the way the worlds of the "haves" and the "have-nots" compare, differ, intermesh, and collide. Here she takes us deep inside the heads of these men and women (as well as a man becoming a woman) in a novel as well-characterized and memorable as The Evil Friendship, The Damnation of Adam Blessing, Intimate Victims, and other early Packer novels now being republished and rediscovered by a new generation of readers.

First Sentence: "Look here, Jessica, I've made a decision. I'm going ahead with the change."

Private Investigator Scott House is in the process of becoming Scotti House and while finally realizing his true self as a female, it has certainly changed his relationship with his wife and daughter. Len Lasher is a wealthy businessman through to be suffering from MS but actually dying of ALS; a secret well kept by the family and his caretaker

I'm not certain what to make of this. I liked the Scott/Scotti who is trying to literally change his life but maintain his two most important relationships. I liked Delroy, the caretaker, and his loyalty to Lasher in spite of Lasher's wife. But the plot is something of a mess that loses its direction and focus in its seeming desire for eclectic characters. The depiction of the Hamptons is stereotypical. By the time I arrived at the actual mystery, it seemed almost uninteresting. I found this book very disappointing and really can't recommend it.