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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | MYSTERY GOR | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Edward Joseph Gorman was born on November 2, 1941 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended Coe College, but didn't graduate. Before becoming a full-time author, he worked for 23 years in advertising, public relations, and politics. His first novel, Rough Cut, was published in 1984. In 1985, he founded Mystery Scene Magazine and was the executive editor until 2002.
He wrote crime fiction, horror fiction, and western fiction under his own name and several pseudonyms. Using the pseudonym Daniel Ransom, he wrote horror and science fiction books including Daddy's Little Girl, The Babysitter, Nightmare Child, The Fugitive Stars, and Zone Soldiers. Using the pseudonym Richard Driscoll, he and Kevin D. Randle co-wrote the Star Precinct trilogy. Under his own name, he wrote crime and mystery books including Wolf Moon, The First Lady, the Sam McCain Mystery series, the Robert Payne Mystery series, the Jack Dwyer Mystery series, and the Dev Conrad Mystery series. His novel The Poker Club was adapted into a movie in 2008. He also wrote The First Lady and Senatorial Privilege under the pseudonym E. J. Gorman. He edited many volumes of science fiction, horror, and crime.
He received numerous awards including a Spur Award for Best Short Fiction for The Face in 1992, the Anthony Award for Best Critical Work for The Fine Art of Murder in 1994, and an International Horror Guild Award for Cages in 1995. He also received the Shamus Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the International Fiction Writers Award, and The Eye, the lifetime achievement award given out by the Private Eye Writers of America. He died after a long battle with cancer on October 14, 2016 at the age of 74.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
St. Mallory's Catholic church connects a series of murders in this gripping mystery featuring former FBI psychological profiler Robert Payne (last seen in Hawk Moon, 1996). Now working as an investigator for a law firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Payne is asked by an old school friend, Monsignor Steven Gray, to look into the murder of Father Daly, a fellow parish priest at St. Mallory's. Father Daly, a counselor known to have had affairs with many of his female clients, was found in a cheap motel with his tongue cut out. Suspicion centers on Ellie Wilson, wife of the parish board president, whose earring was found in Father Daly's motel room. Once Payne finds newspaper clippings in Father Daly's belongings about murders of St. Mallory's parishioners (a prostitute whose eyes had been cut out and a pedophile whose ear had been cut off), he works up a psychological profile of the killer that leads him to someone at St. Mallory's. Payne belongs to the hard-boiled detective school, but Gorman gives him an appealing softer side by detailing his loving relationship with live-in girlfriend Felice, by showing his attention to a young girl with cerebral palsy and by examining his ambivalent feelings for his dying stepfather. The prolific Gorman delivers another smooth page-turner with top-notch mystery production values. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
For a change, psychological profiler (and unwilling amateur historian) Robert Payne's third case (Hawk Moon, 1996, etc.) involves his own past as much as anybody's. The phone call that takes him out to the Palms Hotel and Father Peter Daly's cooling corpse comes from his old friend Steve Gray, now Monsignor Gray of St. Mallory's parish. Why would anybody kill a priest? Father Daly's own past--replete with affairs with the parish women he was supposed to be counseling--provides suspects aplenty. But Payne, aghast at having discovered that the priest's tongue has been cut out, can't help linking his murder to a series of crimes Father Daly had been keeping newspaper clippings of: prostitute Tawanna Jackson (no eyes), child-molesting insurance exec Ronald Swanson (no left ear), and wife-beating schoolteacher Michael Grady (no ears on either side). Since all the victims were connected to St. Mallory's, there's obviously a connection, but what is it, and how far back does it go, and how many killers does it involve? Before Payne can put the pieces together, he'll need to come to terms with the return of his own past in the form of his hated stepfather, who's plopped himself on Payne's doorstep to die. Veteran Gorman plots too generously to allow any of the bewildered St. Mallory's sinners much time in the limelight, but they're all well worth your attention. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
A murdered priest is big news, especially when he is discovered in a room at a no-tell motel with his tongue cut out. Father Steven Gray hopes to minimize the scandal by calling on former FBI man Robert Payne, an old college pal. Although he can't do anything to deflect the looming public-relations debacle, Payne agrees to investigate on the theory that solved crimes disappear quickly from the front page. There are a number of suspects, including the many husbands duped by the victim, a notorious womanizer who was using counseling as a means of seduction. As Payne sorts through the motives and suspects, he must also deal with a dying stepfather and a lover who may be turning away from him. A thoughtful, entertaining mystery, which, at its heart, is as much about mercy and forgiveness as it is about murder. Gorman is one of the genre's most dependable craftsmen, and this is a fine sample of his work. --Wes Lukowsky
Library Journal Review
Psychological profiler Robert Payne searches for connections between a priest murdered following a late-night assignation and two similar murders. Slick prose and an entertaining plot. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
