Power Slide

June 21, 2010
In Dunlap's subdued fourth mystery to feature San Francisco stunt double Darcy Lott (after 2009's Civil Twilight), Darcy's on-again/off-again boyfriend and fellow stuntman, Damon Guthrie, confesses part of a shameful secret about his past. Before revealing more, he asks the definitely alarmed Darcy to bring John, her cop brother, to a meeting at the Palace of the Fine Arts. En route to the meeting, Damon dies in a suspicious car accident, and once again Darcy turns sleuth. Darcy also resumes her overdue search for her brother, Mike, who's been missing for more than 20 years. As she nimbly juggles both investigations, Darcy's snooping puts her in the crosshairs of those responsible for Damon's murder. While Dunlap's appealing Zen detective retains her cool, some readers may find it hard to believe that the astute Darcy would date a man for six or seven years without knowing more about him than she does. A far-fetched subplot about collectible movie memorabilia adds some local color.

July 15, 2010

Darcy Lott's work as a stuntwoman is always less dangerous than her real life. 

In her fifth case, the Zen-practicing heroine is yet again thrust against her will to investigate a series of mysterious events. Her intermittent stuntman boyfriend Damon Guthrie blows a dangerous stunt at her expense. When he asks to meet Darcy to explain what happened, Darcy agrees, even though she's blowing off an important family meeting in the process. Somehow she's been appointed the unofficial head of her family's search for her brother Mike, who's been missing since Darcy was 16. While Darcy knows it's her responsibility to lead the hunt, her last conversation with Guthrie gives her the feeling that what he has to say is more important. Unfortunately, he never shows up, and Darcy's forced into some unlikely alliances with his friends in the stunt world in order to suss out his whereabouts. She goes with her gut, never trusts anyone and ends up in precarious situations that seem more confusing then compelling. All the while, her family and the cops (with some overlap) are on her tail, her brothers and sister demanding that she attend to her duties, the cops insisting that she's the key to the mystery. Darcy once more uses teachings from her Zen guide Leo to inform both her search and her findings. 

Loyal fans of Darcy's adventures (Civil Twilight, 2009, etc.) will gobble this up as a satisfying potential end-cap; for newcomers, it's a miss.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2010
In this fourth mystery starring Darcy Lott, a Buddhist stuntwoman working in San Francisco, the heroines sometime boyfriend, stunt driver Damon Guthrie, almost messes up a dangerous stunt at the Port of Oakland and then winds up dead in San Francisco. Darcy investigates Damons murder and quickly discovers that he had a life and home unknown to her. Meanwhile, Darcys family, including lawyer brother Gary and cop brother John, want her to search for Mike, their long-missing brother, which means trying to learn why he disappeared in the first place. The truth of what happened to Damon lies in the past, in a long-ago burglary in San Francisco, at a stunt ranch hidden in the Southern California desert, and in the words to a mysterious koan. Dunlap melds the two plots with the drama of Darcy continuing to work on rebuilding shattered relationships with her siblings, with information about stunt work, and with interesting bits of Zen Buddhist lore. An entertaining outing from tough yet vulnerable Darcy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)