Sleight of Hand [Hardcover]

Vivien Armstrong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

Infuriated by the interference of Special Branch in one of his murder investigations, Ralph Arnott resigns from the force and turns the case over to Sergeant Judy Pullen, but he is soon helping her solve the case anyway. A first novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Imagine the shock that Francis Swayne's char gets when she discovers the dead barrister--hanging from a bathroom beam--in frilly lingerie, lip rouge, and a red wig. And was the homemade bomb in the kitchen his handiwork? The meddlesome Swayne, who extricated his sister Sabina from a dicey university research project (fudged facts by the project leader, now disgraced) and bamboozled his brother and sister-in-law into letting him assume the education of their children, had also recently, on a legal technicality, gotten Irish terrorist O'Laughlin freed. Did Swayne's browbeaten family or a patriot do him in, or was it merely a nasty end to a bit of autoerotica? Special Branch noses about, as does Sergeant Judy Pullen, but it's Chief Inspector Ralph Arnott who'll sort through the disguises, the scientific folderol, the dalliances, and the politics to arrive at the right conclusion. The sort of mystery in which the clues are better handled than the characters (the Agatha Christie influence), but, still, a perfectly respectable first effort. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; First edition. edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312078048
• ISBN-13: 978-0312078041
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,169,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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