Outwitting Trolls
A Brady Coyne Mystery by William G. Tapply
Review: Boston attorney Brady Coyne leads the quiet life of a divorced man, handling relatively simple cases for friends and long-time clients. But all that changes when an old friend, Ken Nichols, a veterinarian who once treated Brady's pets and who now lives in Baltimore, comes to town to attend a convention, calls Brady to meet him at his hotel to catch up on the ten years that have passed since they last met, in Outwitting Trolls, the 25th mystery (and last) in this series by William G. Tapply (who died in 2009).
Less than 24 hours after their brief get-together, however, Ken was dead. Brady receives a frantic phone call from Ken's ex-wife, Sharon, telling him she found Ken murdered in his hotel room, blood everywhere. Telling her to call 9-1-1 but remain in the room and not to touch anything, Brady rushes over to the hotel only to find Sharon alone in the room; she hadn't called the police. Brady immediately calls the police, but now Sharon, who would already be a prime suspect, now looks to be the guilty party. Brady takes on Sharon as a client but doesn't believe — or more accurately, doesn't want to believe — she had anything to do with Ken's death, and begins to look elsewhere. "Follow the money" has always been sound advice, and he does just that … only to learn Ken was a gambler and deeply in debt. To complicate matters, other misfortunes start to befall the family, affecting Sharon and her two children and Ken's aging father, who resides in a senior citizen's home two hours away.
The intricate plot of Outwitting Trolls is one of misdirection, deception and lies, and well suited to the investigative approach taken by Brady Coyne that relies far more on deductive reasoning than action. A subplot — one that recurs through many books in the series — involves Brady's family and the choices he's made over the years. It's touching in a retrospective sort of way. Still, the focus here is on identifying a killer and it's a strong intellectual exercise for both Brady and the reader.
Brady Coyne is one of the most likeable characters in crime fiction; he (and his creator) will be missed.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Outwitting Trolls.
Acknowledgment: Minotaur Books provided a copy of Outwitting Trolls for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Dark Tiger
Minotaur Books (Hardcover), September 2009
ISBN-13: 9780312379780; ISBN-10: 0312379781
Location(s) referenced in Outwitting Trolls: Boston, Massachusetts
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Outwitting Trolls by William G. Tapply
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-312-53127-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53127-0
Publication Date: November 2010
List Price: $24.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney who focuses on a few private clients and the legal drudgery of their everyday life, which leads to a generally unexciting life. Brady, however, gets a call from an old friend and former neighbor—a man from his past as a happily married man. When Brady was married and living in suburbia, Ken Nichols was his happily married neighbor. Both marriages fell apart years ago and Brady moved to Boston while Ken Nichols moved to Baltimore. Now a decade later and in Boston for a conference, Ken contacts Brady for a get-together and a drink. It’s an uneventful evening but the next day Brady gets a call from Nichols’ ex-wife. She’s standing in her ex’s hotel room, Nichols is lying dead on the floor of his room and she needs Brady’s help.
But this savage murder is only the first and Brady is soon trying to find the connection between these long ago friends and the savage murders dogging their family.