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Summary
Summary
The Los Angeles Daily News has dubbed Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Buchanan "the Queen of Crime." The number one New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell calls her "outrageous and unrivaled." Nearly every reader and reviewer who has gotten a good taste of her exceptional Florida noir agrees: No one captures the steamy, vibrant, and lethal intensity of Miami better than the unsurpassed Edna. And no fictional investigator has more life, depth, character, and savvy than her peerless creation, crime reporter Britt Montero.
The perfect, nude corpse of a beautiful woman washes up on a pristine Miami Beach -- her body tanned and shapely, her nails elegantly manicured. The problem is that the victim, Kaithlin Jordan, was murdered ten years ago. And her convicted killer -- her husband, R. J. Jordan, scion of a wealthy and powerful South Florida family -- sits on death row, just weeks away from his execution.
Newspaper reporter Britt Montero recalls the high-profile murder trial that heated up a volatile tropical city like the merciless August sun. Even without a body, the prosecution's case against Jordan seemed airtight and the jury enthusiastically bought into it. Now R.J. is preparing to walk -- benefiting from the murderous "largess" of whoever drowned his wife in the ocean off Miami Beach -- and Britt's boundlessly curious nature is energized once more by a slew of questions that suddenly need answers. Did Kaithlin frame her husband for murder -- or did she simply efficiently flee an abusive marriage? And why, after successfully reinventing herself, had she returned to South Florida, only to meet a very bad end in deep turquoise water?
Impulsive and explosive, with a turbulent love life and a unique, highly charged relationship with this singular metropolis erected between swamp and sea, Britt is only truly happy when she's involved in a juicy murder story. And this one has the right smell and feel...and threat. Because somewhere in the tangle of an enigmatic beauty's bizarre life and even stranger rebirth -- somewhere between the sparkling gold coast glamour and flashing neon sleaze -- are secret passions and buried solutions that could doom an overly inquisitive journalist with a tendency to leap before she looks. After all, this is Miami, where anything is possible...even dying twice.
Author Notes
Edna Rydzik Buchanan was born in 1939 near Paterson, New Jersey. She attended creative writing classes at Montclair State Teacher's College.
Buchanan was one of the first female crime reporters in Miami. Her police reporting for the Miami Herald won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1986.
In 1979, Buchanan produced her first book, Carr: Five Years of Rape and Murder; From the Personal Account of Robert Frederick Car III. This nonfiction book recounts the story of a convicted rapist and murderer. In 1987, she published her memoirs, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat. That book was followed in 1991 by Never Let Them See You Cry: More From Miami's Hottest Beat.
Buchanan's crime novels include Nobody Lives Forever and Pulse. She is perhaps best known, however, for her mystery novels featuring a Cuban American crime reporter, Britt Montero. These titles include Contents Under Pressure; Miami, It's Murder; Suitable for Framing; Margin of Error, and Act of Betrayal. She has been a contributor to several magazines, including Fame, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone.
Buchanan has received awards from the American Bar Association, National Newspaper Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When the body of a beautiful woman is found floating offshore, seaweed in her hair, veteran Miami News police-beat reporter Britt Montero gets the call in an engrossing who-was-it that soon becomes an equally intriguing whodunit. Britt senses a good story in the making, and when the body remains unclaimed and foul play is established, she is sure of it. A fingerprint check identifies the well-cared-for mermaid as Kaithlin Jordan of the prominent department store family. One problem: she's been dead for 10 years, and her husband is scheduled to be executed for her murder. Kaithlin flourished at the family's flagship store and was rumored to be the brains of the outfit. Britt's mother, a longtime employee, trained her, but avoids queries about the young woman. Once again Britt enlists staff photographer Lottie Dane and cigar-chomping police detective Emery Rychek, along with News librarian Onnie and the rest of her support network, to uncover the woman's past. Drawing on her own rich experience as a Miami reporter, Buchanan (Pulse) charts Britt's determined pursuit of the truth. The reader is along every step of the way, even if things go a bit over the top as the outwardly tough Britt continually struggles to balance the problems of daily life and possible romance with the horrors she encounters in the all-consuming job she loves. Agent, Michael Congdon. (Apr. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Kaithlin Jordan washes up dead on a Miami beach. Just another tourist turned murder victim? Not quite. Jordan was presumed dead 10 years earlier, and her husband, millionaire businessman R. J., was convicted of the crime, although the body was never found. One problem: the body found on the beach hasn't been floating in the ocean for a decade. Miami reporter Britt Montero, who found the body, grabs on to the exclusive story; her first interview is with the now-exonerated R. J., who is as arrogant and loutish as he was portrayed in the original murder trial. As Britt pieces together the events of a decade past, she follows Kaithlin's activities in the years when she was supposed to be dead. The seventh Britt Montero mystery is a fascinating amalgam of red herrings, misdirection, and guilt by personality. Buchanan, who's won a Pulitzer Prize for her crime reporting and has been nominated for two Edgar awards, continues to flesh out her heroine's personal life--meddling Mom and a succession of Mr. Wrongs--while presenting intricate mysteries that reflect current social issues. In this case, it's the fallibility of our well-intentioned justice system and the possible execution of the innocent. An intelligent, thoroughly entertaining crime novel. --Wes Lukowsky
Kirkus Review
Buchanan, whose hooks are the best in the business, outdoes herself when the corpse Miami News police reporter Britt Montero sees wash up on a sunlit beach is identified as Kaithlin Jordan, whose husband is already on Death Row, convicted of her murder ten years ago. If the corpse really does belong to the former department-store clerk who married the owner's heir and became a crackerjack store manager before her well-publicized domestic and legal problems (allegations of a $3 million embezzlement, her separation from R.J. Jordan), its discovery raises some tough questions: What was she doing for the past ten years? Was she an amnesiac or a fugitive from justice? Why didn't she ever come forward to clear the man accused of killing her? And what brought her back to Miami to get murdered days before the state executed her husband? As Britt works her contactsthis time including an investigator for the State's Attorney who shows real promise as a romantic leadto delve deeper into Kaithlin's life, she bumps up against some memorable characters, from R.J.'s sanctimonious mother to an impoverished friend of Kaithlin's who claims her body (along, eventually, with two other competitors) to the sleazy lawyer Kaithlin phoned from her posh hotel room shortly before she died. But none of them upstages the dead woman, who remains even beyond the last shocking revelation the most mysterious presence of all. Pruning away the tabloid crime cameos she does better than anybody else, Pulitzer-laureate Buchanan ( Garden of Evil , 1999, etc.) focuses like a laser on her irresistible main event, and comes up trumps.
Library Journal Review
The woman who just drowned off Miami Beach was thought to have been murdered years ago. Now Buchanan stalwart Britt Montero must discover where she's been and who finally did her in. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
