Light Before Day

by Christopher Rice

Overview

In West Hollywood, journalist Adam Murphy is abruptly fired while chasing a career-making story. A Marine pilot is killed when his helicopter spirals into the Pacific Ocean — and Adam suspects the death was not accidental. Battling his own demons in a city of temptations, Adam pursues the truth alongside his new boss, a famous curmudgeonly mystery writer, and discovers more than he planned about his recently estranged lover, a string of murders of other young men — and a conspiracy so extraordinary that it threatens his sanity and his life. With a talent for creating suspense-tinged fiction that is "chillingly perverse" (USA Today) and "vivid and intense" (The Boston Globe), Christopher Rice delivers a dark thriller of revenge and sexual obsession.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780743470407
Publisher:	Pocket Star
Publication date:	11/27/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.75(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice is the son of author Anne Rice and the late poet Stan Rice. He lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

"Richly painted, viciously paced.... Rice skillfully reveals a labyrinth of deadly secrets and horrifying surprises." — Gregg Hurwitz, bestselling author of The Crime Writer

"Stealthy as a desert wind and as deadly as a knife." — Lee Child

From the Publisher

Rice's third and best still bears the flaws of A Density of Souls (2000) and The Snow Garden (2002). The young author concocts a gay mystery in West Hollywood that has echoes of Chandler but none of Chandler's grip or stylish metaphor. Adam Murphy, 25, writes stories about gay life for LA's Glitz, a magazine some think of as an underwear catalogue. Adam has a cocaine and alcohol problem that leads to blackouts, and in one of them he did something, he thinks, so shameful that he can't remember it. He and the handsome Corey Howard, a nondrinker, were lovers for three glorious weeks, a time when Corey pumped Adam dry about his life while spilling nothing about himself. Corey breaks off their bond, seemingly over Adam's habits, then disappears. He leaves behind his clothes, wallet, car keys, and the car itself. Has he become a victim of the West Hollywood Slasher? Three other handsome gays have vanished in the same way, leaving behind their wallets, car keys, and apartments-and the police have done nothing! Adam's decision to dig into the story leads him to gay hangouts, notorious pimps, and at last to the straight detective novelist James Wilton, Rice's best character ever (he should be played by Michael Gambon). Wilton hires Adam as an investigator, Glitz having fired him, and sends him out to look into the story of a married but gay and closeted marine helicopter pilot who may have killed himself-and three other marines, by plunging his copter into the bay-because of a video secretly made of him. Could this story be as big as the Black Dahlia? When Adam brings back evidence bit by bit, the all-knowing Wilton shrinks it to size but soars with mastery of motives. Things will lead to avigilante who blows up Mexican meth factories and feeds underage kids to a pedophile ring. Endless exposition masked as dialogue, though, makes interest fade. Author tour. Agent: Lynn Nesbit/Janklow & Nesbit

Kirkus Reviews

In West Hollywood, a meth lab explosion is tied to the disappearance of three gay men, as well as the suicide of a Marine. Young journalist Adam Murphy is on the trail of this story, aided by a bestselling novelist. Dallas Roberts gives Adam a burnt-out voice that creates a sense of impending danger as it also brings home his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction. The novel is laced with profanity and sexual detail in its portrayal of the West Hollywood gay scene. While Roberts effectively portrays its “noir” ambience, the story’s unrelenting chill may come across as too strong for some listeners. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

AUG/SEP 05 - AudioFile