Bantam, Oct 2002, 6.50
ISBN 0553584197
He lives in a quiet little Long Island town that is home to the rich and famous but booms during the summer season. There is a clear class division year round between the rich and the working stiffs like Declan MacManus, a man barely making ends meet, who is drunk more than he is sober. Frank Gannon, a powerful private detective in the area, hires Mac and pairs him up with Augie to deal with a man who promised to stay away from a girl but broke his word.
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When they catch up with the young man, they witness him being killed by professional hitmen. They follow them but the professional thugs escape while Augie gets injured and Mac saves their lives. Augie becomes Mac's new friend and the two work on cases for Frank until they can get a line on the killers. Neither Mac nor Augie realize they are the fall guys in a serpentine plot orchestrated by one of the town's most prominent families and the chief of police.
There are so many twists and turns in the POISONED ROSE that the audience will feel obsessed to read it in one sitting; that is if they want to find out who is the manipulator and who is the manipulated. Mac is a man with many flaws and failings but when the chips are down he is a man a friend can count on. He is in essence of a hero in every sense of the word. Daniel Judson is an expert at writing novel crime thrillers.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
