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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Greer, R. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
When Cornelius McPherson, a former highway maintenance man, finds himself trapped in a tunnel he helped create decades earlier, he's horrified to discover the well-preserved, frozen arm of a fellow worker. McPherson remembers a secret the man whispered to him--that he knew who assassinated John F. Kennedy. When McPherson also turns up dead, CJ Floyd steps in to sort out the details, in the process going on his own hunt for the presidential assassin. CJ's journey is a retrospective trek that has him fielding CIA plots, mafia dons, and Cuban conspirators. But it's not until he realizes that there were two attempts on Kennedy's life prior to his actual assassination in 1963--one in Chicago and one in Tampa--that he's able to hone in on who might have really killed the president. The investigation takes him from the pristine mountains of Colorado to the muggy swamps of Louisiana, and ultimately leads him to a grieving, long-silent, Louisiana backwoods Creole mother who may hold the key to what happened. Robert Greer brings his trademark complex but never confusing plot, colorful cast of characters, and stylistic brio to one of America's enduring mysteries in this dazzling whodunit.
Author Notes
Robert Greer lives in Denver where he is a practicing surgical pathologist, research scientist, and professor of pathology and medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He edits the High Plains Literary Review and reviews books for KUVO, a Denver NPR affiliate. Learn more about Robert Greer at www.robertgreerbooks.com .
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Greer's latest C.J. Floyd novel, which ties the JFK assassination to a thriller plot, will appeal mainly to conspiracy buffs, though the author offers little original material or theory. The historic crime resurfaces in the present day when an earthquake damages the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel in Colorado, revealing (in a move reminiscent of the 1984 film Flashpoint) the corpse of Antoine Ducane, who had hinted that he knew the truth behind the murder and then disappeared in the 1970s. The discovery of Ducane's body sets off a chain of violent events, and soon Greer's series detective and antiques dealer C.J. Floyd (last seen in 2006's The Fourth Perspective) gets involved. Greer derails any suspense with flashbacks to mobsters Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello discussing the need to kill the president. Given the many plot holes (why did the mob let Ducane live for a decade after Dallas?), Greer might want to stick to giving C.J. less controversial mysteries to solve. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Who really killed JFK? A murky prologue, set in 1963, finds 11 powerful men known as the High Cabal making an important decision at a secret meeting. The story moves back and forth from 1963 to the present, when Colorado tunnel inspector Cornelius McPherson finds a dismembered arm, identified by a distinctive tattoo as that of his former co-worker Antoine Ducane. Thirty-five years earlier, shortly after telling McPherson that he knew who killed JFK, Ducane disappeared. In '63, Antoine "Sugar Cane" Ducane, a petty criminal in Gary, Ind., fell in with a Chicago group of higher-end criminals with a grand plan for assassination. This took Ducane to Louisiana, a place he savored like a long-lost home. The plan took a weird turn when Ducane learned that Kennedy had been shot, and in Dallas. Back in present-day Colorado, larger-than-life bail bondsman CJ Floyd gets dragged into the case by old friend Mario Satoni, with whom CJ and ladylove Mavis are opening a new business specializing in Western collectibles and antiques. McPherson is gunned down in a bar parking lot just after an illuminating conversation with a Ducane acquaintance named Carl Watson. Floyd follows a long and twisty road to a solution. Greer is a confident and generous storyteller. His sixth CJ Floyd mystery (The Fourth Perspective, 2006, etc.) entertains more with its picturesque detours into the backstories of a large cast of characters than its layered theory of the Kennedy assassination. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
A Colorado earthquake offers up the body of Antoine Sugar Sweet Ducane, a minor criminal missing for 40 years. When he was alive, Sugar Sweet liked to brag that he knew who killed Kennedy. The appearance of his body sends ripples through Denver's organized crime community. The man who discovered Ducane is promptly gunned down, and Mario Satoni, long-retired mafia kingpin, receives a call threatening him if he doesn't maintain his decades-long silence. Satoni dabbles in antiques these days. His partner and surrogate son is Calvin CJ Floyd, semiretired bounty hunter and private investigator. To help Satoni, Floyd undertakes an investigation into the Kennedy assassination that puts him in touch with old CIA operatives, mobsters, and Cuban expatriates. But the key to the puzzle may be in the Louisiana back country, with the grieving octagenarian mother of Ducane. The seventh CJ Floyd mystery is intricately plotted, eerily believable given its premise, and, as always, driven by its complex, ever-evolving hero. Returning readers will embrace it as fine crime fiction, and conspiracy theorists will be treated to rich grist for their ever-churning mills.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2007 Booklist
Library Journal Review
African American investigator and bail bondsman C.J. Floyd (The Fourth Perspective) and his cohorts get caught up in a series of murders that may be linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. First, an earthquake in a tunnel in the Rocky Mountains uncovers the tattooed arm of a miner who has been missing for more than 30 years; then, the tunnel attendant who found the body part is blown away in an affluent area of Denver. When someone tries to kill Mario Santori, C.J.'s mentor and a former Mafia don with connections to the dead miner, C.J. gets involved. Greer gives the JFK killing a newish spin in a riveting story that will make conspiracy buffs and fans of African American mysteries pleased that they stayed the course. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.