John Marshall Tanner is a reluctant survivor. Some days, as he lies in a hospital bed struggling to recuperate from a near-fatal gunshot wound, he figures life is hardly worth living.
One of the few people who can bring him out of his depression is young Rita Lombardi, in the hospital for surgery on a disfiguring birthmark and clubfeet. Rita and Tanner walk the halls together, pulling their IVs behind them, discussing the big and small issues of life: Rita's love for her friend Carlos and her passion for her special corner of the world -- the strawberry fields of California's Salinas Valley.
Rita has been around the strawberry industry since childhood, and she knows that strawberry picking is brutally hard work, and that only the landowners make money from it. In Mexico the fruit is called The Fruit of the Devil, perhaps not an inappropriate designation.
As Rita leaves the hospital for home, walking tall and straight for the first time in her life, she and Tanner pledge to stay in touch. She wants to show him her valley and the plight of the migrant workers, many of them illegals, who work so hard for so little.
But Rita never gets to welcome Tanner to her town of Haciendas. When Tanner recovers enough to call Rita, he receives some devastating news.
Rita is dead, murdered by an unknown assailant.
There will be no marriage with Carlos, no children, no daughter to comfort Rita's mother in her old age. There are rumors in town that Rita was no saint, she was a revolutionary. She wanted to organize a union in a place where unions were welcomed neither by the landowners nor the workers. Was that enough reason for somebody to want her dead? Or was the reason behind her murder more personal?
His guide is gone, but Tanner soon heads for Haciendas to see what he can learn. The San Francisco private investigator is working for free, and he'll stay as long as it takes. His client is Rita, and she's not around to pay.
Life goes on, however, and one of the pleasanter parts of Tanner's life is his give-and-take with attractive San Francisco Deputy D.A. Jill Coppelia, who wants to pick Tanner's brain on police corruption and perhaps investigate other parts of his body as well. Tanner's attracted to her, but he must be careful. And then there's the question of the bequest....
Strawberry Sunday thrusts author Stephen Greenleaf into the topical world of today's headlines, where he boldly showcases the best of his talent. As critics and readers have long known, John Marshall Tanner is broody and tough and vulnerable and altogether memorable, and Greenleaf is one of our great masters of detective fiction.
