Penance

Joe Sherman was the other driver when St. Paul private eye Holland Taylor's wife and child were killed in an automobile accident. Sherman was drunk at the time of the accident, did prison time, and was recently released. Now he's dead, and Taylor is the most likely suspect. Sherman's death turns out to be linked to Taylor's current case, involving state representative and gubernatorial candidate Carol Catherine Monroe, who is being blackmailed by an old boyfriend. Taylor is hired to pay the ransom and secure the tape, but when he arrives at the drop site, the blackmailer is dead. As the bodies pile up, Taylor discovers the link between Monroe and the late Joe Sherman, solves the case, and gets himself off the suspect list. This is a surprisingly accomplished first novel with a likable everyman protagonist and a clever plot. The dialogue sags once in a while, and there are a couple of extraneous subplots, but most readers will find these faults minor and will look forward to Taylor's next case. --Wes Lukowsky

Murder intrudes on a Minnesota political campaign in this first outing for St. Paul PI Holland Taylor. A former cop, Taylor is suspected of murdering a drunk driver who killed his wife and child four years ago. Hunting the murderer to clear his own name, he latches onto the gubernatorial campaign of Carol Catherine ``C.C.'' Monroe, a telegenic legislator whose rise began shortly after the mysterious hit-and-run death of an opponent. Apparently on the verge of upsetting two veteran politicos, Monroe is vulnerable: she once made an intimate videotape with her boyfriend, and now blackmailers may be after her. When a likable young Monroe campaign worker learns something dangerous and pays with her life, Taylor finds himself on a truly sordid trail. Some impressive tough-guy sass emerges from the narrating Taylor, and Housewright, a former newspaper reporter, has an intriguing, darkly pessimistic take on American politics and media. But long monologues and a weakness for preaching bog the story down and, in the end, Taylor is more narcissistic than interesting. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A first novel introduces Minnesota's Holland Taylor, a 40ish ex-cop turned p.i. who's been alone since his wife and child were killed by drunken driver John Brown some years ago. Brown is out now, living in a halfway house with Joseph Sherman, a cellmate also jailed for a drunk-driving death--that of Terrance Friedlander, who was then running a shoo-in campaign for his eighth term in Minnesota's House of Representatives. The police have found Brown in a parking lot, shot to death; Sherman has disappeared; and Taylor is their number one suspect. He manages to come up with an alibi but decides to investigate Brown's killing on his own. Friedlander's opponent in the election was beautiful blond Carol Catherine Monroe, now running for governor and saying all the right things under the direction of lawyer-feminist-manager Marion Senske. Taylor's visit to their campaign headquarters brings little light but produces a job offer--go to one Dennis Thoreau's residence with $10,000 and bring back the pornographic film of Thoreau and Monroe that he's selling. Taylor finds the tape, all right, along with Thoreau's very dead body and ransacked house. From this point, characters proliferate, the body count rises big- time, and the plot thickens to near-impenetrability. Readers may doubt that politically savvy Minnesotans would elect airhead Monroe as dogcatcher, but the author's Spade-Archer derivative, although a bit preachy, might fare much better in a thinner porridge of a plot.