Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery - Softcover

Doolittle

3.42

19 ratings by Goodreads

9780671745714: Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671745719 ISBN 13: 9780671745714

Publisher: Pocket, 1992

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When the insurance company of a rich kid found dead of autoerotic asphyxia refuses to pay the dead man's beneficiary, the ACLU, the quarter-million-dollar settlement, lawyer Tom Bethany decides to take the case.

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About the Author:

Jerome Doolittle is a former Washington Post editor and columnist, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Laos, war correspondent in Southeast Asia, Chief of Public Affairs for the Federal Aviation Authority, speechwriter for President Carter, and Harvard faculty member. In addition to the Tom Bethany mysteries, he is the author of The Bombing Officer, a novel of wartime Laos.

This opens the book. Hope Edwards, Bethany's married lover, is about to enlist his help in a battle between the ACLU and a Boston insurance company:

I was dehydrated from two hours of working out with one of Harvard's good new wrestlers and another 45 minutes in and out of the sauna. I had carried my thirst back home with me untreated, up the stairs, over to the refrigerator for a bottle of India Pale Ale, and then into the La-Z-Boy recliner. Now the bottle of India Pale Ale sat on the table beside the recliner, waiting to be poured into the frosted mug from the freezer. Dusk of another bright October day -- football weather with the leaves crackling under your feet. The phone rang, a friendly sound because only a half-dozen or so good friends knew the number. It's not only unlisted, but it's unlisted under another name than my own, which is Tom Bethany. The phone was sitting on the table alongside the beer, and I picked it up on the first ring.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," a man said. He wasn't one of the friends. "We're conducting a survey on behalf of a Fortune 500 financial services corporation and we'd like your answers to a few questions..."

"Sure," I said. "Let me just finish pouring myself a beer, okay?" He had no problem with that, and so I watched the frost melt as the beer level rose in the mug. When all the frost was gone except for the ring around the top where the foam was, my answers were ready for the kind of survey I knew he had in mind. I told him I was in the age range from 30 to 40, owned my own condominium and two cars, earned between $200,000 and $300,000 a year, and was a physician. Physicians have money, and tend to think they're a lot smarter than they really are, and so financial services guys tend to like physicians a lot. This particular guy wanted to come by and visit me this very evening, so we could talk over investment opportunities.

"Listen," I said. "Why don't I come by your place instead?"

"Oh, that won't be necessary, Dr. Butcher. I can drop by any time this evening, at your convenience. Let me just jot down your address there at home."

"No, really, Jack...It is Jack, right?"

"Bill, actually."

"Bill, right. Look, Bill, I'm inside all day, you know how it is. Nurses and patients, all that shit. Bottom line, I'm always looking for a chance to take the Beemer for a run in the evenings. Where you located, Bill?"

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