Edgar Award Finalist “Taut, smart and electrifying.” –Liv Constantine A new thriller from a writer who’s been compared to Michael Crichton, Alfred Hitchcock, Raymond Chandler, Blake Crouch, and David Cronenberg takes us to the most menacing core of California’s upper crust, a class of billionaires with more money than they could spend in an eternity. Who is Claire Gravesend? So wonders PI …
Who is Claire Gravesend?
So wonders PI Lee Crowe when he finds her dead, in a fine cocktail dress, on top of a Rolls Royce, in the most dangerous neighborhood in San Francisco. Claire’s mother, Olivia, is one of the richest people in California. She doesn’t believe the coroner: her daughter did not kill herself. Olivia hires Crowe, who–having just foiled a federal case against a cartel kingpin–is eager for distraction. But the questions about the Gravesend family pile up fast.
First, the autopsy reveals round scars running down Claire’s spine, old marks Olivia won’t explain. Then, Crowe visits Claire’s Boston townhouse and has to fend off an armed intruder. Is it the Feds out for revenge? Or is this connected to the Gravesends? He leaves Boston afraid, but finds his way to Claire’s secret San Francisco pied-Ã -terre. It’s there that his questions come to a head. Sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, he finds Claire–her face, her hair, her scars–and as far as he can tell, she’s alive. And Crowe’s back at the start:
Who is Claire Gravesend?
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This book features a San Francisco private eye, but we’ve come a long way from Sam Spade’s world. Lee Crowe is a disbarred lawyer of flexible ethics who has a P.I. license and does a lot of work for a high-powered attorney with lots of influential clients. The book opens with a startling scene: a young woman lying dead on the crushed top of a Rolls-Royce Wraith in San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin district in the early morning. She has apparently leapt or been pushed from the flophouse looming above. Crowe happens to be the first person on the scene, and he takes a picture of the horrific sight and sells it to a tabloid.
This draws him inexorably into the plot that killed her; before we know it Crowe is hired by the girl’s wealthy mother to investigate her death. The quest takes him to Boston, where he is jumped by a mysterious assailant and has to kill him in self-defense. Back in California, things only get wilder. He meets another young woman who is apparently an identical twin to the victim but claims to be three years older, and while he is trying to figure that out he is also wondering if this mess is connected to the surveillance job that took him to the Tenderloin that morning on orders from his lawyer pal, who is defending a drug lord in a big federal trial… it’s pretty complicated. It’s also pretty entertaining, with knife fights, gunplay, car chases, a mysterious club for the ultra-rich hidden in the redwoods in northern California… I smell a movie coming up.
It does strain credulity just a little. There’s a bit of a science fiction element, which normally doesn’t do much for me, but the way reality has overtaken fiction recently is making that less of an issue. It’s a tale well told, and I kept turning pages, which is the bottom line.
Classic noir reminiscent of Chandler and Hammett. Grabs you by the throat from the first page and never lets go. Taut, smart and electrifying. Get ready for a long night.
Blood Relations is dark, compelling, and frighteningly plausible. Every twist grabs you hard and pulls you deeper into the mystery. I absolutely could not put this novel down.
What starts as a dark and pacey detective story morphs into something far more sinister and riveting. Ross MacDonald meets Michael Crichton. A very impressive thriller.
It won’t take you ten pages before you’re hurtling along with private investigator Lee Crowe in this high-speed chase into the lives of the California ultra-rich. Sinister twists, gutsy escapes, and uneasy ethics abound — a must-read for fans of Philip Marlowe.
You know those thrillers you pick up at the airport before your flight? This book was just that for me. I hate to say it, but I made it a DNF.
Maybe it’s because I REALLY want to get to some other anticipated books- but I only got about 75% through. I want to finish it when I get through the other reads though.
It’s about an ex-lawyer turned P.I. in California. You follow him while he works out how to solve the death of a young heiress who supposedly committed suicide. He runs into drug cartels, shady FBI agents, mysterious lawyers, genetic problems, family secrets and of course murder.
There’s a lot of lingo that I didn’t understand and some parts I had to read over and over again so it would sink in.
It’s not a bad book, it just didn’t grab me as some other books do.