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Seattle police psychologist Daphne Matthews is having a hard time. After losing a pregnant girl she was trying to help the year before, Daphne is overworking herself by spending long hours as a psychologist and policewoman, and then volunteering at a teen shelter, doing her best not to think or feel very much. When there's the report of a floater, a dead body in the water, by the same bridge her young friend had leapt from, Daphne speeds to the scene. Unfortunately, beating her there is Deputy Prair of the Sheriff's Department, a man who had stalked Daphne in the past and who still won't believe that she doesn't return his feelings for her. Daphne is spooked, but forces herself to show a calm face to the world. When evidence is found to prove that the floater was not a jumper but was thrown, her boss and former clandestine lover police lieutenant Lou Boldt, assigns well-known playboy, Sergeant John LaMoia to work with Daphne on the case. Just coming off an addiction to painkillers, swaggering La Moia seems to see Daphne with new eyes, and though they always got along as cool colleagues before this, Daphne senses a warmed interest for her from the ladies' man. That only reminds her that she's been hiding herself from any emotional ties for a while. This puts even more pressure on her. When the drowned woman is identified as Mary-Ann Walker, a search into her history uncovers an abusive boyfriend. It also brings out an unstable brother who blames his economic downfall on Mary-Ann and her boyfriend. Soon the brother, Ferrell, exhibits an over-the-top interest in Daphne, and she tries to explain it away by saying that he's transferred his affection for his dead sister to her, but the looks he gives her make her nervous. And then the phone calls start, and she discovers that someone has been watching her from outside her home, that someone is shadowing her. Being on the receiving end of fear and apprehension instead of being the assured professional she has always been is getting to her, and the last thing she wants is to appear like a victim to her fellow cops. So she keeps it all to herself, doing her best to practice THE ART OF DECEPTION, pushing herself to appear in control while she works the case. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Boldt had been permitted to take a breather from his desk duty in order to investigate a string of disappearances of three respectable, ordinary women, one of whom had been a friend of Boldt's wife. Having met the woman makes this case personal. A seemingly unrelated death in a section of the city that exists underground (a remnant of the old Seattle built before the 1800s and the fire and tidal flooding that occurred at that time) is brought to his attention by the head of the Asian community. That accidental death appears to be related to the missing women. The different cases are linked and woven together, and THE ART OF DECEPTION gives the readers a spectacular, thrilling ride. Unlike the other books in the Boldt/Matthews series, this book has Boldt take a side seat to Daphne. Told from a woman's viewpoint, a policewoman and psychologist to boot, is fascinating, and the story as expressed through her pride in her job and her personal fears is amazing in its realism. The pages turn themselves, the sense of unease and the fear increases and the reader won't be able to set the book down. Ridley Pearson has done a masterful job of this book. The details, the atmosphere, and the three-dimensional characters all combine for a fabulous read. I'd not only recommend THE ART OF DECEPTION, I also recommend anything that Ridley Pearson writes. His books are gritty and real, and his name on the cover almost guarantees a fine read.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, February 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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