A Good Knife's Work

by Sheila York

Overview

Hounded by publicity from a vicious scandal, screenwriter Lauren Atwill escapes LA for the anonymity of New York City. Having handsome PI Peter Winslow along as a bodyguard and a screenplay to write for the popular mystery series Adam Drake, For Hire, should keep her occupied and out of trouble. Then her new friend Hazel Keane -- an heiress and the producer of Adam Drake -- is brutally murdered in her office late at night.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594148415
Publisher:	Gale Group
Publication date:	01/20/2010
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sheila York grew up traveling, the daughter of a career army officer. She spent much of her childhood in Munich, Germany, and later studied abroad as an exchange student in both France and England. After post-graduate studies in clinical psychology, she took a sharp turn and enjoyed a long career as a radio disk jockey and occasional news anchor and sports reporter, including assignments in Los Angeles and New York City, where her books are set.

Her first novel, STAR STRUCK DEAD, won a Daphne du Maurier Award as Best Mainstream Mystery/Suspense of the Year. It was nominated as Best First Mystery by the Romantic Times.

Her second Lauren Atwill mystery, A GOOD KNIFE'S WORK, takes Lauren and lover, PI Peter Winslow, to New York City and into the world of a popular radio mystery series when one of Lauren's new friends is murdered.

DEATH IN HER FACE brings Lauren and Peter back to Hollywood when a beautiful starlet disappears and her gangster boyfriend is found dead in the burned-out hulk of their secret love nest, shot in the head.

Sheila serves as treasurer of the New York regional chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with her husband, novelist David F. Nighbert.

Meet Sheila at sheilayork.com. Follow Sheila on Twitter.

Editorial Reviews

Set in New York City in 1946, York's snappy second Lauren Atwill puzzler (after 2003's Starstruck Dead) will appeal to readers nostalgic for the golden age of radio. Lauren, a Hollywood screenwriter, and PI Peter Winslow, her gorgeous bodyguard and lover, flee California for New York, where they become involved in investigating the murder of Hazel Keane, the producer of Adam Drake, for Hire, a popular radio mystery series. Lauren goes undercover as a writer for the show under a pseudonym, while the victim's insurance company hires Peter. They soon uncover a host of suspects, including Hazel's estranged director husband, her lover, and her two brothers. Filled with fascinating details about old-time radio production, this crime caper is as much fun as a good game of Clue. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A 1940s radio writer goes undercover among the staff of a rival program. When things get too hot in Los Angeles for screenwriter Lauren Atwill, she and hunky bodyguard Peter Winslow head for New York to escape the press. Alas, Lauren's scheduled script meeting with Hazel Keane, producer of the leading radio serial Adam Drake, For Hire, is canceled when Hazel is bludgeoned and stabbed to death in the Keane Productions offices. The murder scene is on the eighth floor of the Emory Building, which houses the Adam Drake staff on one side of the building and the creators of its competitor, Love Always, on the other. Lauren resolves to prove the city cops wrong in their belief that a handyman did it. Using chutzpah, a new hair color, an alias and her pull with an L.A. connection, she signs on as an Adam Drake writer. She's soon encumbered with office politics, romantic entanglements, family feuds and a mind-bogglingly complicated floor plan. (Thank goodness the book includes a map.) How did the murderer get in, get out, stash the weapon and escape unnoticed? More mayhem ensues, along with more office politics, more romantic entanglements and more family feuds-until a script reading with sound effects in all the right places provides the answers. Readers with a taste for nostalgia will welcome the period lingo and atmosphere from York (Star Struck Dead, 2003). But the locked-venue puzzle, an obvious salute to John Dickson Carr, is tedious.

Kirkus Reviews

Screenwriter Lauren Atwill finds the summer of 1946 in Hollywood to be much too hot. Trying to recover from the effects of a vicious scandal, she heads for the anonymity of New York with her bodyguard, Peter Winslow, a handsome private investigator. Working on a screenplay for the popular radio mystery Adam Drake for Hire will keep her busy and out of trouble. Of course, trouble finds her when her new friend Hazel Keane, the producer of the radio show, is murdered in her office. Police arrest th

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