Deaver introduced his zany heroine Rune to his readers in ‘Manhattan is my Beat'. In this novel, Rune, though still zany seems to have acquired a bit more sense. She is now working for a couple of Australian film-makers, a step up from a video hire store. When she narrowly misses being killed as she is walking past a pornographic movie theatre which is bombed she decides to make a documentary film herself. Then her main contact, porn actress Shelley Lowe, is killed before her eyes in another bombing. Rune gets all steamed up and decides her documentary is going to be about Shelley, as she follows Shelley's career she turns up clues that suggest that the non-existent religious group who claim responsibility for the bombs is in fact a cover for the premeditated murder. By interviewing and sleuthing Rune narrows the suspect list down to three. Shelly's former boss, Danny Straub, is a sadist, had a big row with Shelly shortly before she died and has a very large insurance policy on her life. Arthur Tucker was Shelly's acting coach, Rune discovers that Shelly has written some plays herself and Tucker is passing them off as his own. Suspect number three is a producer who gave Shelly a major part in a play then reneged when he found out about her career in porn, an argument followed and suggestions are made to Rune that Shelly may have tried to blackmail him into hiring her again. Among all this activity there is a romance element for romance blooming between Rune and a police officer in the bomb squad so Deaver as usual gives his readers a full and exciting page-turner.
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The review of this Book prepared by Penny
