Time Lapse (Worldwide Library Mystery) - Softcover

This crisp, cinematic mystery begins with the drowning death of matinee idol and champion swimmer Henry Brook while he is filming a much-publicized movie on an estate in upstate New York. Independence Mutual, issuers of a multimillion-dollar policy on the actor's life, suspect (read: hope) the death was suicide and hire PI and narrator Anna Peters to investigate how Brook met his end. Peters is disillusioned to discover that her favorite actor was a middle-aged playboy with an underage girlfriend and that his tenuous financial situation was held together by an ex-wife whom he insulted at every turn. Learning that Brook lived with both women, Peters speculates that he was too happy to have killed himself. She also learns that both women had motive and opportunity for murder. After a near-fatal attack on the estate manager who may have witnessed Brook's death and a vicious attack on Peters herself, the quick-witted PI, introduced in Law's Edgar-nominated The Big Payoff , uncovers more suspects and the means by which Brook was killed. The question of whether he was a victim of his own vanity or the object of a perfect homicide is resolved in a neat twist. Sophisticated and believable entertainment.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Energetic Washington-based p.i. Anna Peters (Infected Be the Air, 1991, etc.) is hired by Independence Mutual Insurance when famed actor Henry Brook dies, seemingly by accidental drowning, on location for The Lazarus Gambit, his latest movie. Henry's manager and ex-wife Marylin is beneficiary of his million-dollar policy. The movie production, headed by volatile genius director Len Rossol, is insured for millions more. Now, Anna is to investigate the possibility of suicide, which would get Independence off the hook. What she finds, though, are a possibility of murder and a secret about Brook known to very few. Anna's sleuthing involves taking a trip to New York, where she views chunks of the film, including outtakes; visiting the upstate location where Brook died; and getting to know the oddball actors and hangers-on. There's some fun in all this, aided by the author's wry, first-person narrative, but the plot is an elaborately manufactured product--the clanking gears almost audible--and the unsurprising villain fuzzily motivated and unconvincing. The mechanics of movie- making, well-researched, add some interest, but not enough. Heavy going. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.