Whisper Death

C.S. Gray is Director of Information Services, Institute of Chartered
Accountants of Ontario.

In Reynold’s latest mystery featuring Boston homicide detective Joe
McGuire, the once tough cop has retreated to the Caribbean, where he
works part time as a bartender—away from his police job (which has
left him empty and more cynical than ever) and from his detective
partner and ex-lover Janet Parsons (who has gone back to Boston, police
work, and a new romance with a younger man).

Before long, however, McGuire’s self-respect pulls him out of
“retirement” and he returns to his old job in Boston, even though it
means working for the newly promoted Captain Vance (a marginally
skillful detective for whom McGuire feels only contempt). Vance hands
McGuire an emotionally charged first assignment: travel to California
(with Janet’s new lover) and bring back a prisoner. Within hours of
arriving in Palm Springs, the prisoner is killed and Janet’s lover is
critically wounded in an ambush. McGuire, who hasn’t even received his
new gun permit, is miraculously spared, but, nonetheless, feels
responsible.

The remainder of the book is a relatively ordinary mystery, as McGuire
works out the puzzle of why the witness was executed. The mystery is
complex with its roots going back 20 years, involving U.S. nuclear
weapons tests, a military cover-up, CIA heavies, a millionaire widow,
and a dangerous psychotic (whose nocturnal phone calls direct McGuire to
the heart of a crime that is now two decades old).

All in all, this mystery is entertaining, well plotted, and well
written, and sustains the maximum level of suspense and surprise until
reaching the explosive climax in the stark setting of the Nevada desert.