A Very Proper Death [Hardcover]

Alex Juniper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1991

Marni Verstak wonders whether the frightening phone messages about her secret past are the work of a rival Boston real-estate firm trying to harm her own firm, her former lover, her psychotherapist, or someone else. Reprint.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boston real estate broker Marni Verstak becomes involved in drug-trade violence in this fast-paced and effective mystery debut. An anonymous caller alludes to the death of Marni's young son, Matthew, born after her separation from secret homosexual Anderson Thorpe III. But Matthew is very much alive and hidden with friends so that Marni's domineering former mother-in-law will not try to acquire custody. Then a man renovating a house, owned by Marni and located in the deteriorating, drug-infested Jamaica Plain area, is slain. When Matthew is almost killed in a suspicious automobile accident, Marni determines to inform his father, who now has AIDS, about his existence, but she is thwarted. Then Anderson is found murdered, and Marni is arrested. As she struggles against the tightening coils of disaster, she has the support of two men--police investigator Jake Murphy and Anderson's boyhood friend and heir, flamboyant, slightly sinister Geraint Finnbar. Juniper (the pseudonym of a mainstream novelist) embroils her heroine in a suspenseful and complex plot, which ends with the promise of further terrors, as this volume is the first of a projected trilogy. Mystery Guild alternate.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This pseudonymous author has created a first crime novel that doesn't fit the standard "types." Despite its undeniable readability, the work has a distorted plot, a wildly inconsistent protagonist, and a heavy-handed mixture of implausibility, Gothic undertone, and breathy confusion. A mysterious late-night caller awakens an upscale Boston real estate agent, threatening death to her five-year-old son. Incredibly, Marni has kept the boy's existence secret from her gay ex-husband, his charismatically devilish lover, her Brahmin mother-in-law, and nearly everyone else. Wait for something better.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 257 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1ST edition (July 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684193019
• ISBN-13: 978-0684193014
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Page-turner, February 25, 2008

By 

H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Very Proper Death (Mass Market Paperback)

Alex Juniper's A VERY PROPER DEATH is quite literally a page-turner. Marni Verstak is a successful Boston real estate professional. She has married into money but has also divorced the source of that money and, because of her own background, has a keen interest in helping Boston's blighted ghettos. She is scared out of her wits by half a dozen events that happen in rapid succession in this really suspensesful crime novel.

Without revealing much about the serpentine plot, I had difficulty with the author's portrayal of some minority characters, specifically , Geraint Finnbar. The writer also takes on drug dealers, psychoanalysts and old Boston money as well, so perhaps I'm being too sensitive in his treatment of this sinister, diabolical character. Alex Juniper is a pseudonym of one of my favorite writers who would not appear to have a prejudiced bone in her body. Any writer who dares to write about minorities runs a risk of being perceived as biased, however. I read with total surprise recently an article in the NEW YORK TIMES that another favorite author of mine, J. M. Coetzee, has been accused of racism because of his depiction of blacks in his novel DISGRACE, which won the Booker Prize in 1999, and that he may have moved from his native South Africa because of that accusation. That DISGRACE is racist never crossed my mind when I read this dark but compelling novel. Perhaps if I were black, I would have a different opinion.

One final comment: since this novel was published in 1990, some of the information we now know about the illness of one of the characters in this novel was not available to the medical community and therefore to the author then and raises the possibility of a totally different and sad twist to the story.

4.0 out of 5 stars Quick light mystery, February 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Very Proper Death (Atlantic large print) (Paperback)

A quick light mystery by a superb author. Most of her novels are much deeper/harder to get into. This one has a rather unrealistic plot with somewhat stereotyped characters (Hannibal Lecter for one) but is enjoyable. Good for a 3 hour plane flight. MUCH better than alot of the best selling mysteries such as those by James Patterson.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Mystery-Where is the Sequel?, June 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Very Proper Death (Mass Market Paperback)

Loved the story of Marni and Jake. Am a n avid reader of mysteries. Author supposedly writing next book in series. What happened to it?