CASTLES BURNING

by Arthur Lyons ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 25, 1979

Case #5 for Los Angeles private eye Jake Asch--and it's the familiar blend of sharply spun atmosphere, authentically funny repartee (here funnier than ever), and rather footloose plotting. Asch is originally hired by a wild modern artist to find the wife and babe whom the artist deserted a few years back; Asch locates the woman, now remarried to a Palm Springs tycoon, stepmother to his teenage son. (Her own child died in a car accident. . . or was it murder?) But when the tycoon's son is kidnapped, suspicion is arranged to fall on Asch's client (who's soon found a pseudo-suicide); and Asch finds himself in the middle of FBI-supervised ransom deliveries, dope-peddling among teens, and an ugly scheme close to home. No one could call Lyons' plotting shapely (you may find your attention wandering here and there), but it's always worth hanging on--for the good-as-Macdonald social observation (Palm Springs is simultaneously glossy and seedy) and for the terrific one-liners. (Girl in a bar: ""What do you do normally?""/Jake: ""I'm a squire. . . . Things have been kind of tough since my knight died."") Flawed--but distinctive, and distinctly entertaining.

Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION