Jigsaw: A Carroll Quint Mystery

by: Jerry Kennealy

Published by: Thomas Dunne/St. Martins

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

Kennealy was a fireman, policeman, and a private investigator for over 20 years. He has written 10 Nick Polo mysteries, and various thrillers set around the world under different names. He is a San Francisco native, just like the character in this book, Carroll Quint.

Quint is the entertainment editor for the San Francisco Bulletin, writing movie and theatre reviews. He is at Gineen Rosenberry’s party to celebrate the opening of the play she bankrolled, a revival of Camelot starring the older actor Peter Liddell. Liddell takes issue with some of Quint’s negative reviews, and takes a swing at him, resulting in a bloody nose. Quint staggers off without his glasses to the upstairs bath, off Gineen’s bedroom, where she joins him eventually and ministers to his nose. Eventually he sneaks out the back way to avoid Liddell’s bodyguards.

The buzz at the party had all been about the grisly murder of retired actor Montgomery Hines, who had been slashed while in his shower—a killing remarkably like the murder in Hitchcock’s Psycho.

The next day Quint is under investigation for the theft of Gineen’s $600,000 ruby necklace. Next, he gets a phone message from old acquaintance, Charlie Reeder, a retired screenwriter, who asks him to come immediately to his home on the ocean. When Quint does, he discovers Reeder, dead, on the deck covered with birds that are attacking him. Quint becomes suspect number one, and his reporting career takes off when he realizes he is getting coded emails from “Thanatos,” who has been predicting the murders—and he realizes the killer must be someone he knows.

There will be two more deaths before the killer is discovered, with Quint’s quirky movie actress (she had once been a Bond girl) mother Karen helping with the clues, and his delectable girlfriend Terry Greco, the Bulletin’s restaurant critic, providing welcome distractions and sustenance. The city is of course a major character—the Golden Gate Bridge, Treasure Island, various distinctive neighborhoods, all providing locales for important scenes.

Armchair Interviews says: This light and amusing tale will keep you giggling and in suspense right up to the end.

Author’s Web site: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/jerry-kennealy