Star Struck (A Kate Brannigan Mystery) - Softcover

McDermid, Val

9781932859249: Star Struck (A Kate Brannigan Mystery)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932859241 ISBN 13: 9781932859249

Publisher: Bywater Books, 2006

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There is no one in contemporary crime fiction who has managed to combine the visceral and the humane as well as Val McDermid. . . . She s the best. "The New York Times Book Review" " "

McDermid has a sharp ear for the dialogue and intrinsic humor of the Manchester dialect. . . . She manages, as always, to combine her wit and exuberant writing with a careful and clever plot and oodles of perceptive social observation. "The Times" (London)

Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan s wish list. But somebody s got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co., and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, the fast-talking, computer-loving, white-collar-crime expert has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai-boxing kit.

Soon, however, offstage dramas overshadow the fictional storylines, culminating in the unscripted murder of the self-styled Seer to the Stars, and Kate finds herself with more questions than answers. What s more, her tame hacker has found virtual love, her process server keeps getting arrested, and the ever-reliable Dennis has had the temerity to get himself charged with murder.

Nobody told her there d be days like these . . ."

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Review

All series thrillers have an element of the soap opera about them, and so it is logical that Val McDermid's sixth novel about Manchester private eye Kate Brannigan should take her into the world of television soaps. Tough computer-literate Brannigan is hired as bodyguard to the star of Northerners, which bears an uncanny resemblance to another soap filmed in Manchester. Brassy Gloria has been warned by her clairvoyant that death is in the offing, but it is the clairvoyant who gets her skull smashed with a crystal ball. Meanwhile, someone is leaking plot lines, Kate's burglar chum is accused of murder when he takes up honest work, and her staff find themselves in sexual predicaments.

There is a charm to all of this, and some intelligent puzzles competently worked through; McDermid knows, or competently invents, the social milieux she describes. The book is particularly good on the feel of the Northwest on a raw winter day--McDermid's writing gets better and better. This book, though, lacks some of the vigour of the earlier Brannigan books and their note of social protest. Her fans will have no complaints, but this is not the best of her books. --Roz Kaveney

Review

‘Combines wit and exuberant writing with a careful and clever plot and oodles of perceptive social observation’ The Times

‘McDermid is at her best when describing the petty crimes and scams that flourish in her Northern city... the book has considerable charm’
Mail on Sunday

‘Written with fluent ease, making use of Kate Brannigan’s own distinctive voice, Star Struck is a clever novel as well as an entertaining one’
TLS

‘Contemporary feminist crime at its finest’
Good Housekeeping

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