Summertime [Hardcover]

Liz Rigbey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2003

Just published in England, Summertime is racking up stunning reviews. "Beautifully written and wholly absorbing, with a shock denouement," hailed The Sunday Telegraph. "Very gripping (and) taut with menace," wrote the Sunday Mirror. With rights sold throughout Europe, readers on both sides of the Atlantic have a treat in store, especially those who recall Rigbey's arresting debut, Total Eclipse, which the Cleveland Plain Dealer called "a tour de force . . . sensuous, engrossing, and compelling."

In Summertime, Lucy Schaffer's sane, safe life-an existence she has built to escape a painful past-suddenly falls apart when she learns of the death of her father. Authorities in Northern California say her beloved father was probably murdered, his body dumped in the sea. In this rude, unsettling homecoming, she must dive into the deep waters of her past to make sense of this recent horror and solve her father's murder. But what she remembers is foggy, incomplete, and contradictory. As she uncovers the deceptions surrounding her family's legacy of madness and murder, Lucy is forced to face the most chilling memories of her childhood: her mother's insanity, her baby brother's drowning, and the loss of her own son.

Summertime is a hypnotic suspense of a high order and marks the return of one of most daring and creative new novelists of suspense.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eight years after her well-received debut, Total Eclipse, Rigbey returns with another psychological suspense novel, ambitiously conceived but frustratingly disjointed. Overpopulated and overly complicated, the murky plot advances in fits and starts. The pacing is disrupted by frequent flashbacks to the lives of the various members of two generations of the family of a former Russian KGB agent who defected with his wife and three daughters to California-and families of their friends and neighbors as well. Narrated as the first-person account of the granddaughter of the Russian defector, ambitious young investment banker Lucy Schaffer, the story opens three years after Lucy has abandoned her husband and family and fled to New York to forget the tragic death of her infant son. Called home to California when her father's corpse is pulled from the Pacific, Lucy is told that he may have been murdered. She is delegated the responsibility of tying up the loose ends of the estate, and she also takes on the task of investigating the mystifying circumstances surrounding her father's strange peregrinations on the day of his death. Meanwhile, she is forced to confront repressed memories of growing up as the younger daughter of a schizophrenic mother and a father raised by religious zealots. Rigbey's prose is smooth, but even those patient enough to endure the novel's blind alleys and red herrings will be frustrated by the contrived twists at the end.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Three years ago, Californian Lucy Shaffer fled to New York after the SIDS death of her baby son. She hasn't been back to California since. Then she receives a call saying her father has died. Deeply upset and feeling guilty, Lucy flies home only to learn that the police think her father was murdered. As Lucy tries to make sense of the tragedy, clouded memories of the past she has tried to forget return to haunt her: the inexplicable madness of her Russian-born mother; the mysterious drowning death of her infant brother; a nightmarish family outing to Arizona; the shocking death of a childhood friend. As the painful memories emerge, Lucy begins to suspect a horrifying truth: what she has believed about her family is a melange of half-truth, myth, and outright sham. She solves her father's murder but discovers a reality that is dangerous and terribly dark. This multifaceted novel combines a gripping murder mystery; a moving tale of love, loss, and redemption; the powerful saga of a family haunted by tragedy; and the bleak drama of one woman's agonizing confrontation with her past. The only flaw is the British Rigbey's annoying overuse of sure and real to show her grasp of American speech patterns. That aside, this is a well-nigh perfect crime novel. Emily Melton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399150943
• ISBN-13: 978-0399150944
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,164,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A puzzler, November 13, 2004

By 

LVO "Mystery Lover" (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summertime (Paperback)

I picked up this book on a whim and it turned out to be a "can't put it down" selection. It tells the story of a woman whose life has been a series of personal losses capped by the loss of her beloved father. This is the catalyst for her return to California, where she finally digs deep to find the truth. Is she telling us, the readers, the truth? We find out as the book progresses, and it kept me guessing and thinking. I highly recommend Summertime!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Unexpected, February 3, 2006

By 

Paul Wilson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summertime (Paperback)

I found this book in a parking lot. I had no idea who it belonged to. So with a half hour to kill, I began to read it. This is the first book I have ever read where I didn't have to read paragaphs twice, nothing could distract me from it. The author didn't complicate this mystery to the point of confusion. There are also positive themes to consider from this story. This book could be a great movie. As a treat to myself, when I finished the book, was to give it a great review. I guess what I'm trying to say was that it was a great book from chapter one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars masterful psychological suspense, September 1, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summertime (Hardcover)

After her six month baby dies from SIDS, Luce Schaffer leaves Northern California and travels to New York where she takes a job as an investment banker. She makes no friends and her co-workers know nothing about the husband back home, the father who visited her only once in three years, or the mother confined to a mental institution. One day while she is brokering the biggest deal of her career she is summoned home by her older sister Jane who informs her that their father died.

When Luce arrives at her father's home, the police informs her that her father, beloved by all, was the victim of a homicide. Everyone in the family is understandably shocked because Eric was so cherished and didn't have any enemy in the world. The longer Luce stays in California, the more family skeletons are revealed, bringing the police one step closer to solving this and other related killings.

SUMMER TIME is a masterful work of psychological suspense as well as a heart wrenching drama about a family who has known much tragedy, especially the protagonist who feels guilty that she left her beloved father when she couldn't come to terms with her own grief. Liz Rigbey knows how to write a compelling story with an ending that is both unexpected and shocking.

Harriet Klausner