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EPITAPH
by James Siegel
Mysterious Press, February 2003
307 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 0446678708


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

William's partnership in a modest New York detective agency slid toward worthless when divorce no longer required proof of adultery, and then his security guard career turned out even worse. So he settled into penurious retirement, alone, and faded toward the inevitable. The highlight of his day became reading the obituaries. When he saw the death notice of one of his former partners, he went to the funeral to relieve his boredom and pay his respects, only to find himself the sole mourner, except for Jean's building super.

Jean's post-PI career had become hanging around bus terminals to spot teenage runaways before the pimps and rescue agencies got to them so he could call their parents and extract a finder's fee-until lately, when he'd told people he was on the biggest case of his life. Despite William's lethargy and his aches and pains, he finds himself interested in what Jean's heart attack had interrupted. And his ounce of curiosity leads him to shabby apartments where the old lead lives even more isolated than his, having realized that they are now prey in the outside world and no longer in the predator class, to Florida, where the golden agers who fled there turn out not to be there, to a jaded call girl's fancy apartment, whose thick carpet is ruined when William throws up on it, and to the treachery of World War II Paris.

The plot works, with even a curlicue of a twist at the end, and the writing is fine, although easily confused readers like me have to pay attention early on as the point of view switches between William at the start of his investigation, William in progress, and an observer. What separates this book from all the others, though, is its depiction of life as a lonely old person, both for William and for all those he encounters in his rounds. In the beginning, I thought William's depiction seemed more 90-ish than 70-ish, but as his failure of a life unfolded, I found it more realistic, and images of flesh hanging like wet laundry linger. When an attempt to kill him fails but not by much, he uses a cane for a long time; when he's trying to find missing people, he didn't Google. In short, this is an interesting detective story from the standpoint of a genuine codger.

Reviewed by Joy Matkowski, February 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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