Kaethe

I love this one.  It's the first mystery he's ever written where the hero had kids, so he gave him seven.  All boys.  On the other hand, he went back to the unhappy marriage theme letting the wife have an affair and the hero long to have one.  Can't have everything.  A great example of the history factor  where it is only by learning what characters have done that the hero can    blackmail his way to safety.  Also a fine example of psychological detection,  since the hero must consider the various members of a large family to  figure out who is the criminal.  Compounding the difficulty of figuring it  out, there are multiple crimes and criminals.  More stock Francis:  the  older iron-willed woman, wealthy, capable of graciousness that the hero  comes to like and admire (the Queen Mother I can't help but wonder?) and  the angelic mother (now dead in this case).  He deals with topical issues again, namely domestic and sexual violence, and I love the architecture stuff.  Best of all,  the hero lives in a barn with his brood.<br/><br/>1 Jan 1998

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14 Sep 2016

Because BL will only show this one cover I've gotten a good look at it. I prefer the hardcover Putnum jackets in general, but particularly in this case. For a book about a racetrack, horses are barely mentioned, and never mentioned out grazing. Because of the architect the exterior of all the homes in the story are mentioned in detail: nothing like this image.