The Mortal
Groove
A Jane Lawless
Mystery
Ellen Hart
St. Martin's MInotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-34945-9 (0312349459)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34945-5 (9780312349455)
Publication Date: December 2007
List Price: $25.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Minneapolis restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless is in the middle of ringing in the New Year the best way she knows how-with her family, friends, and some excellent champagne-when the biggest financial backers in Minnesota politics break up the party with a little backroom proposition for her father: How'd he like to be the state's next governor? Flattered, Ray Lawless, a retired defense attorney, agrees to run, and the latecomer's sprint to the state capital is going great until reporters and opponents start digging up the kind of dirt that is more valuable than gold out on the campaign trail. He and his family are fair game, but worse than that, so are the men running his campaign. Their secrets, involving the mysterious death of a young woman, have been buried since the summer they all came home from Vietnam. Unfortunately for Jane and her father, those secrets won't stay that way for long.
Review:
Jane Lawless investigates a 35-year-old murder in The Mortal Groove,
the intriguing 15th mystery in this series by Ellen Hart featuring the Minneapolis
restaurant owner.
Jane's father has been asked to run to be Governor of Minnesota
following a stroke by the Party's original nominee. Though less than a
year remains until the election, he agrees. A longtime associate of the
family, Randy Turk, joins the campaign as a legal advisor who
recommends a friend he's known since the Vietnam War, Del Green, as
campaign manager. All seems to be going well until another Vietnam
buddy shows up, Larry Wilton, broke and acting suspiciously. When a
newspaper reporter, a former lover of Jane's close friend Cordelia, is
brutally attacked, Jane begins to look into the story she was
investigating and finds a link to her father's campaign staff: the
murder of a young woman in the early 1970s in which Randy Turk's
brother was accused, and then acquitted.
Some of the best mysteries have multiple, and often intricate, plot
threads that weave in and out of each other until the very end when a
complete picture is formed. The Mortal Groove
is one such mystery. There are a number of instances where a subplot
seems to arrive to a satisfactory conclusion only to have another one
intersect with it and render the first active again. When done well, as
it is here, it's really quite a remarkable reading experience. In terms
of characters, Jane and Cordelia play off one another very well and
make a terrific amateur sleuthing team.
The only discordant note in the book is the thriller action sequence
that takes place in northern Minnesota. There's nothing necessarily
wrong with the way it is written nor is it inappropriate to the story;
it just seems out of place and somewhat inconsistent with the way the
rest of the book is constructed. This minor point aside, The Mortal Groove is an outstanding example of amateur detective fiction.
Special thanks to Breakthrough Promotions for providing an ARC of The Mortal Groove for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Hallowed Murder
Seal Press (Trade Paperback), October 1989
ISBN-10: 0-931188-83-0 (0931188830)
Vital Lies
Seal Press (Trade Paperback), April 1991
ISBN-10: 1-878067-02-8 (1878067028)
Stage Fright
Seal Press (Trade Paperback), October 1992
ISBN-10: 1-878067-21-4 (1878067214)
A Killing Cure
Seal Press (Hardcover), September 1993
ISBN-10: 1-878067-55-9 (1878067362)
A Small Sacrifice
Seal Press (Hardcover), October 1994
ISBN-10: asdf (1878067559)
Faint Praise
Seal Press (Hardcover), November 1995
ISBN-10: 1-878067-67-2 (1878067672)
Robber's Wine
Seal Press (Hardcover), September 1996
ISBN-10: 1-878067-80-X (187806780X)
Wicked Games
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover), August 1998
ISBN-10: 0-312-18680-0 (0312186800)
Hunting the Witch
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover), September 1999
ISBN-10: 0-312-20386-1 (0312203861)
The Merchant of
Venus
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), February 2001
ISBN-10: 0-312-26618-9 (0312266189)
Immaculate
Midnight
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), July 2002
ISBN-10: 0-312-26676-6 (0312266766)
An Intimate Ghost
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), March 2004
ISBN-10: 0-312-31747-6 (0312317476)
The Iron Girl
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), August 2005
ISBN-10: 0-312-31749-2 (0312317492)
Night Vision
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), December 2006
ISBN-10: 0-312-34944-0 (0312349440)
The Mortal Groove
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), December 2007
ISBN-10: 0-312-34945-9 (0312349459)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34945-5 (9780312349455)
Omnimystery keywords for The Mortal Groove ...
Location(s) referenced: Minneapolis, Twin Cities, Minnesota, Iowa.