Sunday, June 26, 2011

Vintage Connor: The Blonde in the Lotus Elite-Robert Baty

Vintage Connor: The Blonde in the Lotus Elite
Robert Baty
R. J. Buckley, May 7 2011, $19.00
ISBN: 9780981965475

Connor was an Oakland cop for twenty years. Retired from the force, he enjoys locating rare classic cars and attending shows especially the big one in Monterey.

Evie, a former girl friend from his early days at Oakland PD, arrives at his hose one night. She left him when she could not cope with the concept of marriage to a cop. Pleading with Connor, Evie begs him to look into the officially determined suicide of her daughter Janey in a motel during the annual Monterey classic car weekend. Grieving Evie rejects the coroner’s finding; instead she insists Janey was murdered. Connor and his former partner Vince Hendrix investigate what he assumes is denial. However, he begins to change his mind when evidence surfaces that makes Janey’s death more likely a homicide, but also that the mourning mom hides something critical from him.

This first super Vintage Connor investigative thriller is a throwback classic Noir containing a touch sleuth, a dame, classic cars and a corpse. The story line is fast-paced from the moment Little Evie arrives to rev up Connor’s “locomotion”; as once a cop always a cop. Action-packed, sub-genre fans will enjoy touring the vintage car world with Connor as our guide.

Harriet Klausner

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