The Second Suspect [Hardcover]

Heather Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 1998

Gabriel and Ingrid Santerre are a wealthy, highly connected couple with a savage kink: In the privacy of a posh New York City hotel suite, they like to subject teenage prostitutes to extremely rough sex. This time, though, they've gone too far, and their victim is dead. As Gabriel goes out to buy a golf bag to hide the body in, Ingrid, strangely passive and long brutalized by her husband, suddenly feels remorse and calls the police. The two are swiftly taken into custody and separated; Gabriel calls in his high-powered lawyer and calmly schemes to frame his wife.

But NYPD detective Caroline Reese won't let him get away with it. Despite Gabriel's connections--reaching right into the district attorney's office--and a warning from her lieutenant that she's proceeding at her own risk, Reese finds the one woman who can lead her to the truth. Reese's quest is blocked not only by Gabriel's pull, but by a violent episode in her own past--one that has left her with a blind spot that keeps her from seeing the whole picture about Gabriel and his wife.

Bringing an exciting new voice to the noir thriller, Heather Lewis coolly and masterfully builds the tension until the novel's shattering--and deeply satisfying--payoff.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gabriel Santerre, the sleek heavy in Heather Lewis's hypnotic, tightly written thriller The Second Suspect, has high level connections to New York politicians and police officials. But he's no match for tough, dedicated NYPD detective Caroline Reese, who is determined to prove that Gabriel killed a prostitute and is now trying to blame the murder on his abused, befuddled wife. In a literary ocean of cops of all sexes, ages, motivations and ethnic origins, Reese stands out as the kind of courageous, fallible officer you'd want your daughter to turn out to be. --Dick Adler

From Kirkus Reviews

An overachieving New York cop meets her match in the monstrous pharmaceutical executive whose taste for seriously offbeat sex has left a prostitute dead in the hotel room he shared with his wife. From the beginning, Lewis (House Rules, 1994), working inside Ingrid Santerre's dazzled brain, emphasizes how nightmarishly normal the death scene seems to her. There's the clothing and makeup to readjust, the room to clean, the oversized suitcase to purchase (that's her husband Gabriel's job), the corpse to bathe and untie before packing it up. But Ingrid, programmed to obey her masterful husband, slips a cog and calls the police, and when the couple is prevented from checking out with their hideous baggage, Gabriel, calm as the villainous husband in Dial M for Murder, smoothly switches gears and offers to testify against his wife in exchange for immunity. He's got both the forceful personality and the political clout to cut a great deal for himself; and when Caroline Reese, the detective assigned to grill Ingrid, tries to get her to protect herself by fighting back, she finds that Gabriel's been planting evidence against this awkward eventuality for a long time, and that addled Ingrid's in no shape to roll over on anybody. Reese's only hope is Lynn Carver, a prostitute who was lucky enough to survive her encounter with the Santerres. But Carver, a veteran of a heroin habit and taste tests of a dozen other designer drugs Gabriel fed her, reveals through a series of conversations as elliptical as any by Henry James--though a lot more sordid--that she isn't exactly anxious to get back into the ring with Santerre, and when she does, it's on his terms, not hers or Reese's. Bad news for Reese, who's already carrying the obligatory load of guilt that will keep her until it's almost too late from seeing just how things stand between the Santerres. Gabriel is a little too obviously a double-breasted bogeyman to carry much conviction. But when Lewis stays close to Ingrid, her matter-of-fact dissociation is horrifyingly real. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese; First Edition edition (May 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385487479
• ISBN-13: 978-0385487474
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,503,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CAN'T PUT THE BOOK DOWN!, August 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Suspect (Hardcover)

The Second Suspect is a well written book. The choice of wording by Ms. Lewis was extra-ordinary. It was really good. Her characters are wonderfully created with great personalities. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves a good investigation.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Quick Read, February 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Suspect (Hardcover)

The Second Suspect is a quick read about a wealthy businessman, a young prostitute, and a detective, each attempting to hide secrets and outsmart each other. The book is a combination who really dunit and will they get away with it.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Quick Read, February 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second Suspect (Hardcover)

Gabriel Santerre, a sadistic man of wealth and Ingrid, his down-trodden wife, harbor a terrible secret. Carver, the Santerre's young surrogate daughter, is both a victim and a cunning player in the Santerre's high stakes game. Recently promoted Caroline Reese, is a guilt-ridden detective whose friend Eleanor may know more than she reveals and whose partner Miller may not be completely trustworthy. These are the chief characters in Heather Lewis' noir thriller The Second Suspect, a novel about drugs, kinky sex, and murder. The Second Suspect is a quick read whose ending may be satisfying but not completely surprising.