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If I'd had a fiver for every crime novel I'd read starring a mildly-disaffected 30-something career woman with a tangled lovelife and troublesome sprogs, I could have retired to the Bahamas on the proceeds. Perri O'Shaughnessy's PRESUMPTION OF DEATH isn't a bad book, but it doesn't add a great deal to the crime canon. And lawyer Nina O'Reilly isn't the most compelling of main characters. Nina has put her career on hold to move in with lover Paul van Wagoner, a private investigator. Sad thing is, their relationship is hardly what you'd call electric either. The book is set on California's Central Coast where an arsonist is setting seemingly random forest fires. Nina and Paul find themselves battling to clear the son of a friend who has been charged with murder as one of the blazes proves fatal. O'Shaughnessy is actually two sisters -- lawyer Pamela and editor/writer Mary. And I do wonder if the book is hampered by having two hands on the helm. Dialogue tends to be leaden and overly detailed, as if the writers haven't quite got the hang of the best way to transmit vital information to the reader. One clunky exchange has Nina outlining legal procedures that Paul, an ex-policeman, would surely be familiar with. Come to that, they really haven't got the hang of snappy dialogue either. One particular scene in a bar where Nina and Paul are on the trail of the mysterious Coyote is so wooden that it's threatened by woodworm. And naming the characters they are eavesdropping on Cowboy 1, Cowboy 2 and Cowboy 3 doesn't exactly fill the reader full of breathless anticipation. And, regretfully, the writers make what should be a pivotal scene when Nina attends a party in search of the arsonist come across as the sort of get-together where you'd rather be in the kitchen doing the washing-up. The plot is workmanlike but never comes alight, mainly because there's no tension and no subplot to vary the pacing. There's a slight spark of excitement about 50 pages from the end, but it turns out to be a damp squib, as several rapid changes of point of view weaken the impact. The scenery's a winner, though. No contest.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, November 2003
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