Full Stop - Hardcover

Smith, Joan

3.05

41 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0449910482 ISBN 13: 9780449910481

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1996

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Joan Smith's Loretta Lawson mysteries have been praised by The Washington Post as a "charming combination of sophistication, wit and unpretentious learning," and by Elle magazine as "refreshing." A brilliant British feminist, Loretta Lawson has faced many a challenge in her amateur sleuthing career, but nothing that could have prepared her for this surreal adventure on the other side of the Atlantic.
Loretta Lawson is already a little apprehensive about spending a hot, muggy weekend alone in New York City at her friend Toni's apartment. And it seems her fears are confirmed when she receives a series of mysterious and threatening phone calls. What's more, as she explores the exciting, unfamiliar city, she has the uneasy impression that someone is watching her, perhaps even following her. As much as Loretta would like to enjoy a carefree holiday, there are other incidents she can't easily dismiss: unsettling encounters in museums and stores, and the frightening fact that someone has been trying to sneak upstairs to her apartment. Is Loretta the target of these unnerving attentions or are they aimed at Toni?
Loretta begins to think that she cannot trust her own judgment; the one person who might lend a hand--her ex-husband, journalist John Tracey, also in New York on a story--has too many problems of his own to help. In the end, Loretta must face the terrifying events that unfold alone. . . .
Full Stop is a chilling story about pursuit, about being alone in a strange city where every news bulletin reports another violent crime, about the fine line between danger and paranoia. Challenging, witty, and disturbing, it is Joan Smith's most sophisticated and suspense-packed novel to date.

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About the Author:

Joan Smith was born in London on 27th August 1953. She is a columnist, novelist and critic. She is the author of Moralities, the highly praised Misogynies and five detective novels, two of which have been filmed by the BBC. She has written columns for The Independent on Sunday andThe Guardian and her reviews appear in theFinancial Times,The Sunday Times andThe Independent. She is a regular contributor to BBC radio. She lives in London.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Loretta Lawson, the author's English lecturer-writer heroine (What Men Say, 1994, etc.), returns for a fifth outing, this time spending a weekend at the New York apartment of her friend Toni Stramiello--a stopover on her way back to Oxford after an extended stay in California. Trouble starts when Toni suddenly announces that she's going to Long Island for the weekend (to get married, it transpires), leaving Loretta to feed and walk Toni's ugly bulldog Honey, go alone to the theater, and receive a series of obscene phone calls at the apartment. Even her amiable contact with journalist ex-husband John Tracey turns out unhappily, their dinner date ending with Tracey nearly unconscious from a forbidden mix of prescription drugs and alcohol. Meanwhile, wherever Loretta goes- -from the theater to the Metropolitan Museum to lunch with her agent--she's certain someone is watching. A walk in the park with Honey produces an embarrassing encounter with a young man claiming to be Toni's son; back at the apartment, the obscene caller, now identified, is still on the line. A last day trip, on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, turns up a living reminder of a one-night stand in the distant past and ends with a fatal shooting--an absurd finish to a hodgepodge of a story. Loretta's twittery reaction to just about everything belies the sophisticated career-woman image, and the plot's incoherence results in little suspense. There's some merit in the flowery, minutely detailed descriptions of New York's highways, byways, art collections, etc., but there are livelier city guides around--and much livelier whodunits. -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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