Deviant Behavior - Softcover

Earl Emerson's acclaimed series about Seattle private investigator Thomas Black is much beloved by readers and critics. And with justification. (These novels, running the gamut from THE RAINY CITY to the just-issued CATFISH CAF, are among my all-time favorite detective tales, and I'm not just saying that because I'm Earl's editor.) But I don't know any other crime novelist who amasses such fervent praise from his peers. It would be a crime to call Earl Emerson merely a "writer's writer." But there sure are a lot of talented authors who revere him. To wit . . .

Aaron Elkins: "In every book he tries something new, and he always comes up a winner. In the best tradition of American crime fiction, Emerson is a master of witty dialogue; clever, complex plotting; and lucid, meaty prose."

Robert Crais: "Earl Emerson writes with the richness and grace of a poet, evincing a quality of phrase and nuance that elevates the genre."

Ann Rule: "Earl Emerson and Thomas Black only get better and better! Earl Emerson has taken his place in the rarefied air of the best of the best!"

'Nuff said.

--Joe Blades, Associate Publisher

"Deviant behavior" is an ironic label for Todd Steeb, a lonely, teenaged track star whose behavior throughout this story is actually heroic, and who, at the outset, is thought to have run away from home. Private investigator Thomas Blackfirst introduced in The Rainy City is hired to find him. In the course of his quest, Black encounters a trail of cash (leading to Todd), an eccentric writer and his has-been, Hollywood-actress girlfriend and the many denizens of Seattle's nicely detailed Chinatown. However, neither the events described nor the characters evoked make for an engaging story. Deviant Behavior is pleasant and workmanlike at its best, but it is never compelling. Paperback rights to Ballantine.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.