Killer View (Walt Fleming Series #2)

by Ridley Pearson

Overview

When a skier goes missing from a Sun Valley mountaintop, Sheriff Walt Fleming's crack search and rescue team becomes a target. Waist-deep in snow and neck-deep in lies, Walt suspects that people of great wealth and power-including a former state senator-want to keep him where he started: out in the cold.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440632792
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/15/2008
Series:	Walt Fleming Series , #2
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	360,206
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ridley Pearson is the author of more than twenty novels, including the New York Times bestseller Killer Weekend; the Lou Boldt crime series; and many books for young readers, including the award-winning children's novels Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, which he cowrote with Dave Barry. Pearson lives with his wife and two daughters, dividing their time between Missouri and Idaho.

Hometown:

St. Louis, Missouri

Date of Birth:

March 13, 1953

Place of Birth:

Glen Cove, New York

Education:

Kansas University, B.A., Brown University

Website:

http://www.ridleypearson.com/

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A gripping page-turner of a novel."
-ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

"Tension-filled...Will have readers furiously turning pages until the end."
-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Editorial Reviews

Pearson again concocts his irresistible, pulse-pounding blend of fact and fiction . . . an intricate cat-and-mouse game that Pearson orchestrates with his pro's aplomb.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A terrific villain, an appealing protagonist, and breakneck pacing. . . . Ridley Pearson writes thrillers, the kind that try to yank you to the edge of your seat and keep you there.

Boston Sunday Globe

Pearson returns to his favorite protagonist as Sun Valley Sheriff Walt Fleming must race against the clock to uncover a volatile biohazard operation and head the search for his best friend who's disappeared. Christopher Lane reads with a firm, unwavering voice that captures the heightened tension in Pearson's prose without sounding too urgent or manufactured. Lane's slightly underplayed tone is fairly straightforward, but his characters are steeped in reality and, more importantly in a commercial thriller such as this, believability. Lane's reading does the story justice, managing to draw listeners into the mystery and set their pulses racing with every twist and turn. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, May 19). (July)

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Publishers Weekly

Part-time Sun Valley resident and prolific thriller author Pearson (Killer Weekend, 2007, etc.) gives readers an informed take on valley politics, class divisions and rugged backcountry as Sheriff Walt Fleming returns for a second case. An anonymous tip about a missing person sends Sheriff Walt Fleming and Mark and Randy Aker, two brothers who are members of a Sun Valley rescue squad, into the night as an early snowstorm cloaks the hills. Randy, who had gone ahead, is found dead at the base of a cliff. A fall? Fleming thinks not. Too many clues-the sound of a distant gunshot and the possibility that the surviving brother may be a poacher-suggest foul play. In what appear as unrelated developments, Fleming learns that water at a local bottling plant contains contaminants, that mountain sheep are dying and that a man with powerful ties to government may be spying on him. Mark Aker, it turns out, survives, but in a remote wilderness cabin at the hands of a thug with a three-foot shoulder span (an overdrawn character who persists in dropping heavy-handed clues). Into Idaho's Challis National Forest (vividly described) to search for Mark and connect the dots of the case goes Walt, aided by a deputy who took up with Walt's wife when she left him and their two daughters, and a photographer who registers as a keen observer and a good romantic partner for the sheriff. Muscular action scenes ensue. Mark escapes his captor and fends for himself in the wilds, surviving at one point by snuggling up to a hibernating bear. Walt gets out from under an avalanche; plays cat and mouse with pursuers as he pilots a glider; and learns the ramifications of his case were as far-reaching as he had suspected.Pearson may not send readers to the edges of their seats, but his practiced work lets them lean comfortably against the backs of them as they follow durable Sheriff Fleming's engaging pursuit. Agent: Amy Berkower/Writers House

Kirkus Reviews

"A gripping page-turner of a novel."
-ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

"Tension-filled...Will have readers furiously turning pages until the end."
-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

From the Publisher

Sun Valley Sheriff Walt Fleming's wife has left him and their young twin daughters and taken up with his best deputy. Then his friend Mark, a veterinarian, goes missing; Mark's assistant is horribly assaulted; and his brother is murdered. It becomes apparent that a conspiracy involving radiation poisoning is involved. Picking up on cues in the text (a twang, an annoying speech habit, an injured mouth), Christopher Lane individualizes characters and keeps things moving while stressing the unflappability of Fleming and the beauty of the Idaho scenery. He is also sensitive to the edgy relationship developing between the sheriff and his female crime-scene photographer. Some scenes—such as hiding in a cave with a hibernating bear—stretch the credibility, but Lane just makes the most of them. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2008 - AudioFile