Book Review: Play Dead

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Play Dead     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Leo Atkins
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Private Investigator   Noir   Thriller
Series: Connor Gibbs # 2
Berkley, Mar 2000, $5.99, 272 pp.

When he even cares, malicious criminal mastermind Grant Helms seems to relish the pleasure of knowing the misery he causes. Usually, the sadist is indifferent to the trouble he makes. For instance, Grant ignores the plight of a boy maimed by Grant’s rottweilers. However, the lad’s mother feels the passion and pain of her son. She cold bloodedly kills the two canines, but that fails to satisfy Leontine Chevalier’s need for vengeance. Only Helms’s death might ease her thirst.

Leontine hires private investigator Connor Gibbs to keep her from killing her foe. Connor moves into Leontine’s trailer, but miscalculates when he allows her to do a TV interview. On the air, Leontine challenges Helms, who eagerly picks up the gauntlet. He sends his thugs after her, but they all fail due to the abilities and experiences of Connor, a former “company” operative. Now Helms adds Connor to his personal most wanted list.

PLAY DEAD is an extremely grim novel because all of the characters spend much of their time on the darker side of the human experience. The villain is as vile as they come and the anti-hero is his match because he thinks similar thoughts. Readers who enjoy a complex, realistic psychological suspense drama that paints the mind as a gloomy receptacle of evil will fully enjoy Leo Atkins’ heart thumping thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner