Lawless, Jane (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. |
Women detectives -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- Fiction. |
Restaurateurs -- Fiction. |
Lesbians -- Fiction. |
Stalkers -- Fiction. |
Minneapolis (Minn.) -- Fiction. |
Mystery fiction. |
Detective and mystery stories. |
Available:*
Library | Collection | Material Type | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Cobourg Branch | Searching... Unknown | Adult Fiction Mystery | F Har M | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Joanna Kasimir, an old friend of Jane Lawless, left Minneapolis years ago to make it big in Hollywood and, unlike so many others, she succeeded. Unfortunately, her stardom came at a price. Early in her career, Joanna was involved with a man who quickly went from being an idle interest to a dangerous stalker. Nearly a decade has passed since she sent him to prison, but just as she is about to leave for her hometown to star in her friend Cordelia Thorn's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, she receives one of his ominous calling cards.
Joanna refuses to let him control her life--she can't. Not again. Tired after ten years of fear, ten years of hiding, she calls on Jane, restaurateur and amateur sleuth, and former homicide detective A. J. Nolan, but they may not be able to protect her from a man who refuses to be anyone's one-night stand.
And when they find out that Joanna may not be the only one on the run, their investigation quickly spins Jane into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Night Vision promises to be one of Ellen Hart's best mysteries yet.
Author Notes
Mystery author Ellen Hart was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in August 1949. She received a B. A. in Theology from the Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. She writes the Jane Lawless and the Sophie Greenway series. Five of the Jane Lawless books have won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery. She has also won the Minnesota Book Award for Best Crime Fiction twice. She currently lives in Minneapolis with her life partner.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Hart's entertaining, unpredictable 14th mystery to feature lesbian restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless (after 2005's The Iron Girl), movie star Joanna Kasimir returns home to Minnesota to perform in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at her friend Cordelia Thorn's St. Paul theater. As it turns out, Joanna has a lot to be afraid of her ex-husband, Gordon, who once served prison time for stalking her, may be back to his old tricks. Joanna enlists her old chum Jane to tail Gordon. Meanwhile, Jane's best friend, David who happens to be Joanna's brother shows up in the Twin Cities carrying secrets that he's afraid to reveal even to Jane. When Gordon turns up dead, David looks like the most plausible suspect. In fact, any number of Joanna's adoring fans might have bumped off her stalker. Hopefully, Jane's long-distance relationship with girlfriend Kenzie, who's mostly offstage, will receive more attention in the next installment. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Gay restaurateur/sleuth Jane Lawless wrangles with obsessed fans. Aging but still gorgeous movie star Joanna Kasimir has emerged from her self-imposed Iowa exile to join Cordelia Thorpe's Minneapolis production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But maybe she should have stayed hidden in the boondocks. Neighbors in the apartment she sublets bombard her with career, romance and makeup advice. They perch outside her door waiting for a glimpse of her. They lie about their journalism credentials to interview her. Worse yet, Gordon, the former gardener/boy-toy who spent eight years in prison for stalking her, is out and obsessing about her again. Jane, a close friend of Joanna's brother David, hooks her up with a p.i. for protection, but the obsessed will not be denied. Gordon seems like the most menacing, but now David is erupting for obscure reasons in nightly bouts of violence. Even Joanna's first husband, now anxious to remarry, may have smarmy motives. Will no one leave poor Joanna in peace? Must she take matters into her own hands to free herself from obsessive threats? Jane's willing to suffer beatings and gunplay before she calls in the cops, but even she can't make everything turn out right this time. Jane's got a new girlfriend, and Cordelia's been snookered by her sister Octavia once again. Otherwise, their 14th tour of duty (An Intimate Ghost, 2004, etc.) finds them little matured in their middle years. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Minneapolis restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless is busy running two restaurants and maintaining a long-distance relationship when theater-director friend (and series regular) Cordelia Thorn invites mutual friend Joanna Kasimir, a reclusive Hollywood star, home to Minnesota to headline Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? An unwanted bouquet prompts Kasimir to fear that the stalker who made her flee Bel Air is back. Concurrently, David Carlson, Jane's longtime friend and Joanna's estranged brother, materializes at Jane's door. Pitting sib against sib in a deadly game, the fourteenth Lawless mystery gets highly dramatic. --Whitney Scott Copyright 2006 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One When it came to leaving, Joanna always had to work her way through alternating layers of anxiety and fear and an ever-present hungry itch, one that whispered in her ear that it was time to go back out into the world again and prove she was a survivor. In the past fourteen years, her house overlooking Lake Pend Oreille had become not just a home but a safe haven. She'd never felt comfortable on display in Hollywood. She'd always looked upon her life there as a necessary evil. Sandpoint was a town of some seven thousand people, situated at the tip of the Idaho Panhandle, just fifty miles from the Canadian border. When Joanna had first come here after the trial, it had seemed like the middle of nowhere, and that's just where she wanted to be. Even before the trial, Joanna had been looking to get out of L.A. She hated the phoniness, the professional promises so easily made and broken, the casual lies, and the ignorant arrogance that came with power and privilege. Every morning she'd wake in her home in Bel Air with the same sense that something was breaking inside her. She was surrounded by friends, fans, business associates, and an adoring public, and yet she was hugely--cavernously--lonely. For a time, she toyed with the idea of moving back to the Twin Cities, back to her hometown of St. Paul, but that felt too much like failure. She wasn't the young, eager, innocent Jo Carlson any longer--theater major at the U of M, aspiring actress, starry-eyed wannabe. She was Joanna Kasimir, an internationally known film star with dozens of movie credits--and an Academy Award and two Golden Globes resting on her mantel. She could still remember the dreams she'd had as a young woman. She'd lived on little else for years. How could she have known what the flip side of those dreams would be? When she finally left L.A., she knew without a doubt that she was running for her life. But life had a habit of never traveling in straight lines. It turned out that she wasn't running away so much as she was running toward something better. She'd found her mountain hideaway near Sandpoint two months after leaving L.A., bought it on the spot. She was as much seduced by the cathedral feeling of the big log house as by the tall timbers surrounding it, the view of the lake below, the fresh air, and the sense of peace all around her. She could make a stand here. She would dig in and see what life was really about. Amazing as it seemed, she'd come to love this place with the same passion she felt for acting. She'd never felt lonely here, not even for a day. Afternoon sunlight flooded the living room as Joanna turned from the deck and walked back inside. She stroked her blond hair behind her ears, glancing down at her grubby jeans and T-shirt. She'd have to get used to wearing presentable clothing again while she was in Minnesota. The limo was scheduled for ten tomorrow morning. It would take her to the airfield where she'd board a private jet. She was pretty much packed, although she wanted to look through her closet one more time. Heading up to her bedroom, she cringed when she saw the four extralarge suitcases spread open on her bed. Joanna Kasimir, the actress, adored beautiful clothing. It was all part of the split personality thing Joanna had been living with ever since she'd moved to Sandpoint. She was part small-town resident and general recluse, and part actress, a woman who could still command an audience and who still had the fire in her gut to act. Cordelia Thorn, an old friend and the current creative director at the Allen Grimby Repertory Theater in St. Paul, had offered her a part she'd been wanting to play for years--Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The AGRT was one of the finest regional theaters in the nation, so it was an honor to be asked to join the company for a limited engagement. Joanna relished the challenge of bringing something new and definitive to the role. If nothing else, shrews were fabulous characters to play. At forty-seven, Joanna had long ago faced the fact that the film scripts she was being offered were, to put it bluntly, crap. The legitimate stage had become the refuge of the aging actress. As she started to close the suitcases, the phone rang. Stepping over to the nightstand, she picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she said, standing with a hand on her hip. "Joanna? It's Diego Veras." Diego was her brother's boyfriend. She hadn't heard from either of them in more than a year. She felt a pang of guilt for not keeping in better touch but pushed it away. "Hi," she said. Her first instinct was to assume that something was wrong, but she felt it was best to go with a neutral question. "How are you?" "Fine. Well, not so fine, actually." Diego had a heavy Spanish accent. He and his family had moved to California from Buenos Aires when Diego was fifteen. Diego and Joanna's brother, David, had met when David was in L.A. visiting her--must have been back in the early eighties. Diego was Joanna's age, a few years older than David, already an established architect at the time. "What's going on?" "Have you heard from David?" "No. Why? Is he okay?" "To be honest, Joanna, I don't know. He . . . well, he left me. I thought he'd go off for a few days, think about it, and come back. He's done it before. But he's been gone a long time and I'm worried." "How long?" "Almost a month." Joanna sat down on the edge of the bed. "Are you saying you have no idea where he is?" "Yeah. No idea." "Was he angry when he left?" "Not exactly. I was. I told him things had to change or . . ." His voice trailed off. "Or what? Tell me!" "Or I was leaving him. Look, I blame myself, okay? I shouldn't have lost it like I did, but you don't know what it's been like living with him this last year. You haven't exactly been the world's greatest sister, Jo, so I don't think you're entitled to a lecture." If he wanted to make her feel like a total shit, he'd succeeded. "He didn't say anything about where he was headed?" "After I left for work one morning, he just took off. When I got home that night, his car was gone, and so were a bunch of his clothes. He took maybe five thousand from the wall safe. I had a guy run a check of his credit cards. He's not using them. He obviously doesn't want me to know where he is. I've talked to our friends all over the country, but nobody's seen him. I'm scared, Joanna. In the shape he was in, anything could've happened." "What's that mean?" "He's not well. Don't ask me what's wrong, because I don't know. I'm not even sure David knows." "That doesn't make any sense." "Welcome to my life." She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes. "Call the police, Diego." "I did. He's officially listed as a missing person, but so what? It's not like they go looking for him." "Then hire someone private." He sighed. "I thought about that. But I keep hoping he'll come back." "If you don't hire someone--and I mean today--I will." "Okay, okay. You're right. But I wanted to check with you first, just in case he headed your way. I didn't really think he had." Score another point for Joanna. She was a lousy sister. "Can you think of anyone he might contact?" asked Diego. "I've called all our friends. Nobody's seen or heard from him." Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Joanna put her hand over the mouthpiece and shouted, "Annie, will you get that?" Annie Thompson was her live-in housekeeper and cook. Returning to Diego, she said, "I don't know. I'll have to think about it." "Well, think fast, okay? I'm going crazy here. If you hear from him, you'll call me, yes?" "Of course I will. You do the same." She explained that she was leaving for Minneapolis in the morning. She gave him the phone number of the loft where she would be staying. He already had her cell. As she hung up, Annie sailed through the bedroom door carrying a large package wrapped in bright pink paper. "Flowers, Joanna. I can smell them right through the wrapping." Annie was an energetic, sentimental, soft-bodied woman. Her mother was from Mexico, an illegal until her father, a rancher from Utah, had married her. She set the package on the dresser and stood back, waiting for Joanna to open it. Joanna's stomach still contracted with dread at the sight of a flower delivery. Ripping off the paper, her breath caught in her throat. It wasn't precisely like the flowers Gordon used to send, but it was close enough. "Something wrong?" asked Annie. "Here, you should read the card." She removed a small pink envelope from the center of the arrangement. Copyright (c) 2006 by Ellen Hart. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Night Vision by Ellen Hart All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.