A Grave Talent (Kate Martinelli Series #1)

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More About This Book

Overview

This gripping debut of the Kate Martinelli mystery series won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery, generating wide critical acclaim and moving Laurie R. King into the upper tier of the genre. As A Grave Talent begins, the unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A string of shocking murders has occurred, each victim an innocent child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who's less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it's going to be a difficult case. Then the detectives receive what appears to be a case-breaking lead: it seems that one of the residents of this odd, close-knit colony is Vaun Adams, arguably the century's greatest painter of women, a man, as it turns out, with a sinister secret. For behind the brushes and canvases also stands a notorious felon once convicted of strangling a little girl. What really happened on that day of savage violence eighteen years ago? To bring a murderer to justice, Kate must delve into the artist's dark past--even if she knows it means losing everything she holds dear.

Kate Marinelli, newly promoted to Homicide in the San Francisco police department, has been assigned with her new partner, middle-aged Alonzo Hawkin, to the murders of three little girls in the area. They gradually uncover a pattern of evil so bizarre that Casey's carefully guarded private life is demolished.

Editorial Reviews

Marie Kuda
Inspector Alonzo Hawkin is assigned to coordinate investigations into the strangulation deaths of two Bay Area little girls and the disappearance of another, the daughter of a politically connected family. He is told to take Kate Martinelli as his assistant for PR reasons (it'll look good to the fearful mothers of four counties to have a woman on the case), and indeed, Martinelli is paraded before the press when the third child's body is found dumped, as were the others, in Tyler's Road, where lives a colony of artists and dropouts, each of them fairly isolated from the others. It is almost certain that the child-killer is a resident of the colony, and suspicion falls on a haunting artist with a murder conviction in her past. Well crafted, prickling with excitement, full of intriguing characters, King's debut doesn't disclose that her female detective is lesbian until 180 pages have gone by. After the last 120, readers won't care, for with Kate Martinelli the figure of the lesbian sleuth explodes into the mystery mainstream in a story told well enough to hook and hold Rendell and P. D. James fans.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780553573992
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 6/28/1995
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 368
  • Sales rank: 199,500
  • Series: Kate Martinelli Series , #1
  • Product dimensions: 4.21 (w) x 6.87 (h) x 0.99 (d)

Meet the Author

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of ten Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, and the acclaimed novels A Darker Place, Folly, Keeping Watch, and Touchstone. She lives in Northern California where she is currently at work on her next novel.

Table of Contents

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 15 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(5)

4 Star

(6)

3 Star

(2)

2 Star

(1)

1 Star

(1)

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Sort by: Showing all of 15 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 2, 2007

    Fabulous series

    I'd gather that anyone indulging in the sin of reading dark crime novels wouldn't be concerned with the lead character's sexual orientation but apparently reading sinful art isn't as bad as reading sinful art about sinners. With that being said, the Martinelli series, from the first book, are wonderfully written and enthralling. As long as you can get 'past the fact' that the detective is a *gasp* lesbian you'll enjoy these books.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 21, 2012

    After Sherlock

    I ran out of Mary Russell novels so I bought this. Ms King is an artist and I can't wait for more of either series.

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  • Posted August 10, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    9780312245566 9780786889181 9780060506711 9780440210696 9780743499484

    Well written, but suffers from overblown prose and gratuitous side stories

    The professionals have written the detailed reviews you need to have a clear idea of the thrust of the novel. It is a worthy -- as seen by the awards it won -- first novel. But it grows tiresome at some points and frankly I'm not all that titillated by gay police officers, maybe there was more of an impact when the book was first written, but now one can barely call up a tepid yawn. The close of the novel, from denoument to final period takes, I kid you not, 97 pages of tedium; nearly a fourth of the book. I suppose it was intended to create tension and develop the characters more fully. It sent me into a paroxym of page turning, hoping for something of interest.
    A good three star novel, little more. If you like the genre or the author it is probably worth the money for the paperback version.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 6, 2009

    Great Mystery

    This was a great mystery. Fun, fast paced, and it had me guessing up to the end who the killer was. When I finally found out who did it, I was really surprised.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted September 3, 2007

    A reviewer

    I have to say I was disappointed by this book. I read King's Mary Russell series first, and am glad I did. I enjoyed the Mary Russell series, and I would probably not have read them if I had read the Kate Martinelli series first. I had enjoyed the book up until the point when you discover Kate is a lesbian. I was thoroughly disgusted, and immediately returned the book to the library, 'where I had borrowed the book'. I really did enjoy her other series and recommend them to all, but this series disappointed.

    0 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 15, 2003

    Heartily recommended

    An excellent book I¿d heartily recommend to anyone interested in mysteries/thrillers with an art twist. It is a San Francisco police investigation, revolving around a famous female artist, Vaun Adams, who has been in jail (under another name) for the murder of a child. When three more little girls are murdered near her current home, a hippie enclave, she¿s the logical suspect. But the detectives almost immediately conclude that she was wrongly convicted the first time, and is the victim of a frame by someone who hates her. The art elements (the description of her work, of her studio, and of her) as well as the characterizations, settings, private lives, motivations and detection are handled extremely well. The identification of the criminal, and the police pursuit of Vain Adam¿s enemy, trying to catch him before he can kill again, is packed with suspense. As far as I know, King has not written again about the art world. I wish she would. I think I¿ve read every art-related mystery still in print, and a lot that aren¿t, and this is one of the best. She includes the perfect amount of information about art and the artist, enough so the reader has a sense of it, an understanding of the plot, but not enough to bore the reader.

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