Available:*
Library | Material Type | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library | Adult Mystery Fiction Book Hardback | 120791002536231 | M WRI | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
"This new PI has got a smart mouth on her, and plenty of wigs to help her find her own true character."-- The New York Times Book Review (on The Red Chameleon )
It begins with a bang: Kathleen Stone is watching her friend Dolly and his fellow drag queens from The Pink Parrot perform at the Halloween Parade when their float explodes. Suspecting foul play, The Pink Parrot's owner, Big Mamma, hires Kat to find the culprit.Meanwhile, Kat has not given up on her quest to bring gangster Salvatore Magrelli to justice and once more dons a disguise to infiltrate The Skyview, an exclusive club run by his wife, Eva. When she watches the club's poker dealer drop dead during a high-stakes game, she decides to look into his death as well. Upon discovering that he was also gay, she suspects that this murder could be a hate crime connected to the parade explosion.However, as Kat digs deeper, she realizes that the truth is much more complicated and the real villains are much more difficult to spot.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Wright's so-so second novel featuring reluctant PI Kat Stone (after 2014's The Red Chameleon), Kat is pursuing the big one who got away during her stint as an NYPD undercover detective-drug kingpin Salvatore Magrelli-until a second case distracts her. At Manhattan's annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village, Kat is watching the float from the Pink Parrot club pass by, with Kat's friend Dolly and fellow drag queens performing, when a flaming baton ignites it, seemingly by accident. Or was it? Two fatalities and the revelation of prior death threats to Pink Parrot performers prompt club owner Lacy "Big Mamma" Burstyn to hire Kat to investigate. When a gay poker dealer is poisoned in a posh supper club operated by Magrelli's wife, Kat suspects a link between the cases. Kat crisscrosses New York in various disguises, confronting persons of interest who unconvincingly flip-flop from good guy to bad guy and back again in a messy plot not enhanced by a depressed heroine. Agent: Penn Whaling, Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Private eye Kathleen Stone (The Red Chameleon, 2014) gives her wigs a workout trying to figure out who's menacing New York's drag queens. Everybody loves a parade, except maybe the NYPD, whose members worry that the city's annual Halloween trek up Sixth Avenue will somehow get out of hand. This year, the boys in blue have a point. As fireworks boom overhead, Daro Rodriguez, known to his fans at the Pink Parrot as Dolly, begins to belt out "Rocket Man." Suddenly someone in the crowd pushes a juggler tossing fire batons in the air near the Pink Parrot float, setting the papier-mch stage ablaze, badly burning Dolly and killing fellow performers Bobbie Giabella and Taylor Soto. Grieving over the loss of two of her rising stars, owner Lacy "Big Mamma" Burstyn hires Kathleen to find their killer. She shows her an engraved funeral notice she received forecasting not only Bobbie's and Taylor's deaths but those of Dolly and fellow performers Herman White, Ravi Sethi, Aaron Kline, Carlton Casborough, and Juniper Summer. Believing the card to be from the homophobic Zeus Society, Kathleen dons a blond wig and a frumpy gray dress to pose as Kate Manning, who asks Zeus leader Cronos Holt to help cure her fictitious gay nephew. In addition, Kathleen asks her old NYPD pal Ellis Dekker to help her infiltrate the Skyview, a members-only club owned by Salvatore Magrelli's wife, Eva, hoping to catch the mob boss red-handed in some dastardly deed. Ellis' brother wangles Kathleen's red-wigged alter-ego Katya a place in a high-stakes poker game, where she watches the dealer crumple and die after a sip of champagne. When Kathleen learns that Ernesto Belasco was also gay, she suspects there's more nastiness going on at the Skyview than cheating at cards. But connecting Belasco's death with the fire on the Pink Parrot float will take grit, gumption, and even more disguises. More concentrated than Kathleen's debut, Wright's second entry begins to develop a detective who can shine through all those costume changes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Kathleen Stone is good at being inconspicuous. It's a valuable trait for a former NYPD undercover agent who's now a PI attempting to go after drug kingpin Salvatore Magrelli on her own. But the Magrelli job goes on the back burner when a Halloween parade explosion on the float sponsored by the city's prime drag club, thePink Parrot, kills two club employees and injures Kathleen's close friend and the club's headliner, Dolly, aka Dario Rodriguez. Kathleen is hired to find out who's responsible. Then a dealer in a private poker game, in which Kathleen is a player, is poisoned and dies in front of her, and she has another job. With a variety of top-drawer wigs and wardrobe changes, Kathleen (posing alternately as Kat, Katya, Kathy, Kay, Kitty, and even Keith) gets to the bottom of the murders but leaves the Magrelli job still undone. In this sequel to The Red Chameleon (2014), the plot meanders to a close, failing to form a coherent whole. But don't lose hope for the series quite yet: Kathleen is a promising protagonist who needs a more focused narrative.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
PI Kathleen Stone is still obsessed with bringing gangster Salvatore Magrelli to justice. But an attack on a drag queens' float in a Halloween parade and the death of a gay poker dealer lead her to uncover a hate group that may tie it all together. Stone dons many disguises as she moves from world to world, aided by her self-proclaimed anonymity. This is a relatively brief work that is on the light side of suspense, suitable for summer reading or winter storm hibernation. Well read by Tavia Gilbert. Verdict Entertaining but not essential, more appropriate for larger, well-funded mystery collections.-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.