Act of God
Books / Hardcover
Books › Fiction › Mystery & Detective › General
ISBN: 0671795589 / Publisher: Pocket Books, June 1994
Boston private eye John Francis Cuddy looks for the links among a determined widow, her murdered husband, a cagey young druggist, his missing sister, and the honky-tonk boardwalks of Atlantic City
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Spring bathes Boston in the balm that makes enduring a New England winter worth it all - and signals lovers that it's time for something more than cool-weather affection. But in John Cuddy's one-room office, the season matters little to the visitors in the two client chairs: a petite, determined widow and a cagey young man, united by a missing girl and a shocking murder."I don't know from murder, Mr. Cuddy." Grief-stricken Pearl Rivkind wants to know whether her beloved husband, Abe, was having an affair when someone savagely, inexplicably killed him in his office. William Proft, an impassive druggist with a sleazy lawyer's manner, wants Cuddy to locate his sister, Darbra - who worked in Abe's furniture store until she left on vacation and then disappeared. The dual case screams conflict of interest, but something in Pearl's grit and vulnerability makes Cuddy want to help.The killer's tracks at Value Furniture are already cold, and Cuddy soon discovers that no one - from the dead man's 310-pound business partner to his meticulous accountant - has an unkind word for the Holocaust survivor they knew as "Honest Abe." On the other hand, Darbra Proft's coy best friend and bitter aunt are almost eager to talk - about her many lovers, the fat insurance policy on her life, and her lifelong enemy: her only brother.Soon William Proft makes it no secret that he prefers his sister found soon - and dead. Darbra's current boytoy, a rock musician with little animal magnetism and fewer brains, seems indifferent to her fate, and her latest ex-lover is lost in sorrow over his wife's recent death. In Boston and on the honky-tonk boardwalks of the New Jersey shore, Cuddy is following a trail that grows more and more twisted as spring melts into summer.While memories of a happy marriage cushion Pearl Rivkind's future, and Cuddy's own romantic life shifts into an unexpected new key, Cuddy doggedly pursues the truth. What he finds will be more brutal than his clients could imagine, and it will be his alone to share... or to guard mercifully within himself....
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