Nightbird

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY OCT 4, 1999

The fourth installment in Dee's gritty police series gets off to a promising start when the body of young Broadway actress Gillian Stone plummets from a building onto the top of a parked van in Times Square, and detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory quickly realize that her fatal leap may not have been a suicide. The case takes an interesting turn when they discover that Gregory's nephew, magazine writer Danny Eumont, is not only the former boyfriend of the dead actress, but that he received a call from her just hours before her death. But the fingerpointing shifts from Eumont to Gillian's most recent romantic partner, stage producer Trey Winters, when the detectives learn that he was the last person to see her alive. Working with the detectives on the case, Eumont follows the trail of clues to Arizona, Florida and back to New York, researching the missing link in the investigation, who turns out to be the victim's half-sister, Faye Boudreau. Peeling back layers of Faye's hidden identities, Eumont has a brief fling with her and soon discovers that she's involved with her violent, possessive foster brother in a scheme to blackmail the philandering producer. Ryan and Gregory provide their usual stream of sarcastic patter, and the author introduces an engaging array of New York oddballs, immigrants, criminals and seductresses. But Dee (Bronx Angel; Little Boy Blue) doesn't develop much intrigue or surprise around the initial crime after the chilling promise of the opening scene. The final chase, through Randall's Island and Ward's Island, provides a brief flurry of excitement, but readers will appreciate this tale not for its tepid suspense quotient but rather for the snappy, even irreverent NYPD duo's banter throughout.