Helpful Score: 2
I have enjoyed Deaver writing as William Jefferies. This was no disappoint. Juicy read.
Helpful Score: 1
Probably not one of Deaver's best, but still a good story with several of his signature twists and surprises.
Helpful Score: 1
I got the impression that this was a first book. There were a few continuity errors, and he got some names mixed up more than once. It was a readable story, but not one that enthralled me. I am going to give this author a couple of more tries, and if I don't enjoy his other works more, I probably wont' read any more of him
Indy film maker John Pelham is making a documentary on an old neighborhood discovers that SOMEONE wants the past to stay buried. He's willing to burn down the whole area and Pelham with it, to keep the secrets.
A film maker decides to make a documentary about Hell's Kitchens residents. He is on his way to continue interviewing Ettie Washington when a fire destroys her tenement. Ettie is arrested for having the fire set but Pellam doesn't believe she is guilty and sets out to find proof. Very good book
This is a typical, but entertaining crime novel. There is a fire in Hell's Kitchen in New York. The first person accused is an elderly woman and obviously innocent. If you enjoy this kind of pulp fiction, you will like this book.
Can't get with this author.
Excellent book.
John Pellam, site locator for the movies, finds himself in trouble in Hell's Kitchen.
Deaver has never let me down and this one was good!
John Pellam made a name for himself as a director before a stint in San Quentin took him off the fast track. Since his release he's been shooting a documentary about New York's Hell's Kitchen, which he hopes will propel him back into the career that skidded south after he ran afoul of the law. Pellam has found the star of his new film, one Ettie Washington, who has lived in the neighborhood for decades and is the perfect voice to tell the story of an area that's losing its old-time seediness to urban gentrification. But then Ettie's tenement goes up in a blaze that kills a small boy and puts her right in the public eye--as a suspect.
Edgar Award-nominated Deaver exposes the brutal side of the Big Apple as John Pellam, a former Hollywood location scout, takes to the streets of Hell's Kitchen to film a documentary. Pellam is on his way to check on one of his interviewees, an elderly woman named Ettie, when he smells smoke and sees flames engulfing Ettie's tenement. Unfortunately, Pellam can't get near her fifth floor apartment, and she jumps out the window to land on a pile of trash bags. Pellam soon finds that Ettie is the prime suspect in the arson; she's kept in prison after another resident dies of injuries suffered in the fire. In an attempt to exonerate Ettie and uncover the true culprit who has been lighting fires around the city, Pellam ends up talking to some unnecessarily grouchy detectives, fire investigators and local thugs.
Thriller
Every New York City neighborhood has a story,but what John Pellam uncovers in Hell's Kitchen has a darkness all its own. The Hollywood location scout and former stuntman is in the Big Apple hoping to capture the unvarnished memories of longtime Kitchen residents such as Ettie Washington in a no-budget documentary film. But when a suspicious fire ravages the elderly woman's crumbling tenement, Pellam realizes that someone migh want the past to stay buried.
As more buildings and lives go up in flames, Pellam takes to the streets, seeking the twisted pyromaniac who sells services to the highest bidder. But Pellam is unaware that the fires are merely flickering preludes to the arsonist's ultimate masterpiece, a conflagration of nearly unimaginable proportions, with Hell's Kitchen-and John Pellam-at its blackened and searing epicenter.
As more buildings and lives go up in flames, Pellam takes to the streets, seeking the twisted pyromaniac who sells services to the highest bidder. But Pellam is unaware that the fires are merely flickering preludes to the arsonist's ultimate masterpiece, a conflagration of nearly unimaginable proportions, with Hell's Kitchen-and John Pellam-at its blackened and searing epicenter.
An exlibrary book that was removed from circulation at our local library. Still in good condition
