Yellow Bird - Hardcover

Boyer, Rick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0449905063 ISBN 13: 9780449905067

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1991

Synopsis

A Doc Adams Mystery.
Doc's old medical school chum and one-time drinking buddy, Jonathan Randolph, calls up one cold January night to invite Doc to pay him a visit on Cape Cod. Not long after the awkward reunion, Doc's presence is once again requested -- at an autopsy. A man has been found shot to death next door to where Doc and Jonathan met. Doc immediately recognizes the dead man as George Brenner, another friend from the past. And Randolph has disappeared without a trace. Is Doc's old friend the murderer . . . or the next victim?
From the Paperback edition.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In his Doc Adams stories, Edgar-winner Boyer ( Billingsgate Shoal ) calls on cozily familiar characters, strong local color and good guys who are indisputably on the right side; at the same time he occasionally slips into smugness and boosterism. This time Doc and his wife Mary are invited to a late autumn Cape Cod party given by an old med-school chum who has made it big in Texas. During a stroll on the beach, the Adamses think they hear a shot from a deserted mansion, but the house seems empty when they investigate. A few weeks later, a body, shot, is found in the house, which belongs to mega-rich Northrop Chesterton; the victim turns out to be a former neighbor of Doc's on the mainland. A long, complicated tale involving more murder, drug dealing, gay and interracial sex and secret identities unfolds to a fairly satisfactory end. While drawbacks include Doc's dumb amateur-dick stunts, putting him in peril, and a silly soap opera-ish situation with a pretty girl, Boyer brings this adventure to a fairly satisfactory end.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Bay Area oral surgeon Dr. Charlie Adams's second hardcover case (Gone to Earth, 1990) spirals outward from a telltale bang during a visit to unlikable old school chum Jonathan Randolph on the Cape. What that shot leads to is Doc's amazed identification of a John Doe found in political hopeful Northrop Chesterton's closed-up house (next door to Randolph's) as another old acquaintance, George Brenner. Why did the killer deliberately arrange to have Doc and his wife Mary on hand to witness the fatal gunshot? Why does an investigation into Brenner's background turn up such contradictory testimony about his behavior? And how is the murder tied in to Chesterton's mysterious intimacy with his houseboy, Owen Lightner, and a drug ring identified by the ``Yellow Bird'' logo on Brenner's missing T-shirt? Dense plotting, solid detection, and the usual Spenserish heroics. But don't expect to see all the loose ends tied up: the complications are still unreeling at the final shootout. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0449905063
• ISBN 13: 9780449905067
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 323