Barbara Paul is a delightful mystery writer and the person who gave me a copy of one of her books will never be allowed to leave my circle of friends.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT is not the first in the series about Sergeant Marian Larch, but it is the first that I read. It did a good job of introducing Sergeant Larch and her co-workers.
Four corpses have been found, hand-cuffed together, in Manhattan. Each man is well-dressed, white-collar, unidentified, and shot through the right eye. Marian recognizes the murders as a warning, but to whom and about what? It turns out that all four men had worked for Universal Laser Technologies and were heavily into government contract work.
While working on this increasingly dangerous assignment, Marian is dealing with her personal life and the murder of a mother of three young children. Her present boyfriend is obnoxious and on his way out. Marian, and the reader, have reason to worry that the new men in her life may be more involved with the four dead men recently found in Manhattan. Marian's use of a woman from the young mother's case to help catch the guilty person in the Universal Laser case is this side of brilliant.
As in any series from this genre, each book adds to the development of the regular characters. The next book I read from this series was Fare Play. I am very glad I didn't read this first, because Marian’s life had taken a turn that might have ruined the suspense of YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. It was another lesson to read any series in order.
I will be reading more Marian (now Lieutenant) Larch stories. If police detectives are on your list of must read mysteries, this is a series that you will enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment