Practice to Deceive

November 3, 1997
PI Holland Taylor is a former cop with an African American associate who covers his back, a high-level friend on the police force and a very smart lady who tries to keep him on the straight path. He also practices martial arts, brews exotic coffee and favors a special brand of local beer. But Housewright--who won an Edgar for best first novel with Taylor's debut in Penance (1996)--does more than merely echo Robert B. Parker's Spenser in this second episode: he tells a good story in a setting he makes his own. Taylor works out of Minnesota's Twin Cities, far from Boston; the black associate is Freddie (Sidney Poitier Fredricks), a venal and definitely downscale PI who wouldn't last two minutes up against Parker's Hawk. The cop friend keeps tossing Taylor into jail. The lady is Cynthia Grey, a lawyer who used to be a stripper. Taylor's martial arts practices may well compensate for his slight build. Housewright's plot is as open-faced as his genial homage. Asked by his father to help an 85-year-old neighbor recover the life savings stolen from her by Levering Field, an oily investment counselor, Taylor uses a cross-dressing computer genius to harass the swindler. But just as Field is ready to cave in, he's found dead--and somebody with very good aim is also shooting at Taylor. Housewright's wit, while making the most of the bow to Parker, should earn him an acclaim all his own.

What would you do if your financial advisor invested in a "sure thing" and then lost it all? This happened to Mrs. Gustafson, and Holland Taylor's father has convinced him to "get the money back any way you have to!" Brian Emerson convincingly wends his way through the web of deceit, with Holland Taylor wisecracking and sleuthing all the way, in the company of a cross-dressing techie and his knockout lawyer/girlfriend. As the plot unravels, Housewright ties up the loose ends, and Emerson provides the fluid narration that maintains the delicate tension of the web until all the deception comes undone. M.B.K. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine