Book Review: The Art of Deception

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

[4 stars]

The Art of Deception Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Ridley Pearson
Class/Genre: Mystery Police Procedural
Series: Boldt / Matthews # 8

About 100 years ago, downtown Seattle was vulnerable to flooding from the waters of Puget Sound, and city planners and engineers began an urban renewal project/land fill project which raised the level of the city center about 100 feet. Not all the existing structures in use as the project began were totally demolished, however, and "underground Seattle" still exists. Storefronts, storage rooms, air shafts, and tunnels are still there - some presenting a ghostly reality with furnishings and shelving still in place. Not surprisingly, enterprising homeless persons and drifters have taken advantage of these abandoned structures to obtain shelter from the elements.

Underground Seattle is an impressive backdrop for most of this book. Police psychologist Daphne Matthews is called upon to assist in questioning the brother of a woman who died when her battered body was pitched off a bridge into the water. The brother has been living on the streets. In what seems at first like an effort to work his way back into productive society, he offers to help in the police investigation. However his proposals are bizarre, he presents evidence he has located himself (probably making it inadmissable at trial), he begins to stalk Matthews, and generally make himself a first class nuisance.

As a parallel to the death of the woman found in Puget Sound, police are also investigating the disappearance of two other women, and the mysterious medical evidence presented in the death of a city worker who was repairing a water main break. As the harrassment worked by the dead woman's brother begins to build, police are more and more convinced the three cases are interrelated.

The action includes several harrowing trips to the underground part of the city. Not a book for the claustrophobic!

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM