Merry Christmas, Murdock (Matt Murdock Murder Mystery) - Softcover

Ray, Robert J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1603819231 ISBN 13: 9781603819237

Publisher: Camel Press, 2012

Synopsis

Christmastime is here, and weary-but-wise private-eye Matt Murdock is short on funds and holiday spirit. There are no white Christmases in Newport Beach, California, but there are soggy ones. One rainy evening at the Xanadu Mall, a down-on-his-luck mystery writer named Marvin Holly meets a runaway teenager and autographs her book. As they exit the mall, they encounter the headlights of a speeding car. In the aftermath the author is missing and the girl is in a coma. On an earlier case, Murdock befriended a precocious teenager named Cindy. Cindy is the product of a broken home, a very wealthy one, and her people would rather break Murdock’s face than accept his help finding out what happened to her biological father—the missing author from Xanadu mall. Meanwhile Murdock has been hired to find out why Heather, the daughter of a sexy but tightly wound senator named Jane Blasingame, was injured in a hit-and-run. Is she the teenager last seen with Cindy’s father? And was Heather really a member of the notorious San Diego gang, a group of wholesome looking youngsters who prey on unsuspecting salesmen? Cindy’s mother and the fabulously wealthy Duke family—the clan of Cindy’s uncle—were not fans of Marvin Holly’s work ... or the man himself. They certainly don’t want Murdock to locate him. How are Holly's disappearance and the hit-and-run connected? Will the lovely senator fall for Murdock's rugged charms? If the holidays don't kill Murdock then this case will.

About this title

About the Author:

ROBERT J. RAY is the author of eight novels: Cage of Mirrors, The Heart of the Game, Bloody Murdock, Murdock for Hire, Dial "M" for Murdock, Merry Christmas, Murdock and Murdock Cracks Ice. A sixth Matt Murdock mystery—Murdock Tackles Taos—will be published in 2013. Ray is also the author of a popular non-fiction series on writing, The Weekend Novelist, and he shares writing techniques on writing at bobandjackswritingblog.com. A native of Texas, Ray holds a PhD from the University of Texas, Austin. Tuesdays and Fridays, he writes at Louisa’s Bakery and Café in Seattle. For more information, go to murdock.camelpress.com.

Review:

"What a find author Robert J. Ray is . Perhaps best of all, Mr. Ray has the rare ability to build tension bit by bit by bit and keep much of this throughout the last two-thirds of the book, almost without pause .... A crackerjack piece of plotting and writing and unhesitatingly recommended."
--Mystery News

"

L. A. private eye Matt Murdock is back, celebrating a holiday in decidedly unfestive fashion in Merry Christmas, Murdock. Here the past rises up before Murdock in two ways.

Cindy Duke, a teen-ager who had maybe saved his life a couple of years earlier by driving him out of a burning canyon, asks him to find her father. He teaches in Wisconsin and came to L. A. in response to Cindy's cry for help, raged at his ex-wife, battered her brother's car with a baseball bat, ranged through a shopping mall in a failing search for Cindy, and disappeared.

Meanwhile, another teen-ager, Heather Blasingame, lies in a coma from a hit-and-run encounter with a vehicle at that same mall. She's the daughter of Jane Blasingame, feisty Texas state senator, and the senator (though with considerable reluctance) hires Murdock to supplement what seems an inept police investigation.

These two cases are of course related, and powerful interests -- not only Cindy's grandfather Wheeler Duke and Duke Construction -- are willing to go to about any lengths to keep Matt's nose out of these matters.

Vivid, active tale.
--THE ARMCHAIR REVIEWER, Allen J. Hubin, Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 1990.

Bloody Murdock: "The story never stops and the lushly decadent southern California life was never more so." --Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Camel Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1603819231
• ISBN 13: 9781603819237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282