USA Today calls Face Value "Absorbing…Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat…A fine, intelligent story," and Newsday says, "Di Palma, a complex and very likeable detective, is in top form in Face Value."
The followers of San Francisco quantum physicist and guru "Brother Mike" thought they were exploring their sexuality and spirituality when he guided them through videotaped group encounters. They didn't know the tapes would end up in the XXX sections of their video stores. Now one ...
USA Today calls Face Value "Absorbing…Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat…A fine, intelligent story," and Newsday says, "Di Palma, a complex and very likeable detective, is in top form in Face Value."
The followers of San Francisco quantum physicist and guru "Brother Mike" thought they were exploring their sexuality and spirituality when he guided them through videotaped group encounters. They didn't know the tapes would end up in the XXX sections of their video stores. Now one former devotee, an old friend of lawyer Laura Di Palma, has come to her new office for advice.
Laura turns for help to her former partner, detective Sandy Arkelett. They haven't spoken since their falling out months ago. But as their case careens from bank offices to porn parlors to a private fantasy island, they're forced to struggle with their own relationship. When Laura discovers—and lies about—multiple dead bodies in a strip club, she finds that new secrets have a way of getting old lovers killed.
Find out why Kirkus Reviews praises a "hair-raising finale," and Booklist says "This latest Laura Di Palma adventure is no exception to the tight plotting, good characterizations, and page-turning suspense that have typified the earlier entries in the series and that make Matera one of the best contemporary mystery novelists… Highly recommend… Matera is too good to miss."
This latest Laura Di Palma adventure is no exception to the tight plotting, good characterizations, and page-turning suspense that have typified the earlier entries in the series and that make Matera one of the best contemporary mystery novelists...Highly recommended...Matera is too good to miss.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Reading a Lia Matera novel is a lot like drinking a superb brandy: velvety, mellow, a bit dizzying and with a bite that stays with you a long time... She leaps to the forefront of the remarkable vanguard of women...who have redefined the modern mystery.
Laura Di Palma is one of the smartest, most open-minded sleuths in the lawyering trade.
Newday Newday
Di Palma, a complex and very likable detective, is in top form in Face Value.
USA Today
Absorbing...Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat...A fine, intelligent story.
Product Details
BN ID: 2940013888807
Publisher: Lia Matera
Publication date: 12/21/2011
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Sales rank: 331,582
File size: 1 MB
Meet the Author
Lia Matera is the author of twelve novels, ten short stories, and a novella. She is a graduate of Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, where she was editor-in-chief of the Constitutional Law Quarterly. She is a member of the California Bar and was a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time writer.
Two of her novels were nominated for the mystery genre's top prize, the Edgar Allan Poe Award. Three were nominated for the Anthony Award, and two were nominated for the Macavity Award. She has also published two anthologies. Her story, "Dead Drunk," originally printed in Scott Turow's, Guilty As Charged, won the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best Short Story of 1996
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Overview
USA Today calls Face Value "Absorbing…Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat…A fine, intelligent story," and Newsday says, "Di Palma, a complex and very likeable detective, is in top form in Face Value."The followers of San Francisco quantum physicist and guru "Brother Mike" thought they were exploring their sexuality and spirituality when he guided them through videotaped group encounters. They didn't know the tapes would end up in the XXX sections of their video stores. Now one ...