Past Tense
A Brady Coyne Novel
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3.8 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Brady Coyne is a middle-aged Boston attorney with a small, select clientele - one that leaves him sufficient time to pursue a personal life. That personal life currently focuses on Evie Banyon, a hospital administrator Brady has been seeing for the past year. While they are on a weekend vacation in Cape Cod, though, a determined stalker from Evie's past turns up to torment her anew. After an unpleasant confrontation with him, Brady and Evie return to their vacation cabin with a dark cloud hanging over them. The next morning, Brady wakes up to the sound of Evie, just outside the cabin, screaming for help. What he finds is the stalker's murdered body lying at Evie's feet, a body she claims to have discovered when she returned from her morning run.
Now both Brady and Evie are considered prime suspects in the murder of a man with deep ties to the local community. Released by the police after intense questioning, they return to Boston, whereupon Evie disappears without word or much of a trace. Realizing just how little he knows about Evie's life, Brady Coyne must now delve into her past if he is to uncover the truth about the dead body in his front yard and find the missing Evie in time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brady Coyne is appealing and modest both qualities that apply to this somewhat insubstantial mystery, Tapply's 18th to feature the Boston attorney (after 2000's Scar Tissue). He and girlfriend Evie Banyon are off to Cape Cod for a romantic weekend of "making love and eating lobster," but before their lobster tails are fully cracked, Evie's mysterious past shows up in the form of Larry Scott, ex-lover turned stalker, and a very public confrontation at a seaside restaurant. Their tryst is completely ruined when Evie discovers Scott's dead body the next morning. The police believe that one of them, or both, committed the crime, but don't have enough evidence to make an arrest. Evie sends Brady packing after they return to Boston even he has doubts about her and then vanishes. The story revolves around Brady's haphazard, persistent efforts to track her down in the unpleasant little town of Cortland, Mass., where Evie used to live and the stalking began. Gossipy and provincial to begin with, Cortland has a still uglier side that's revealed as Brady delves deeper. The mystery behind Scott's death is fairly transparent, though Brady is slow, perhaps too slow, to catch on. What catalyzes the novel is Evie's secret: What has she done? And why? She's not an entirely convincing enigma, though; a woman as interesting and tough as Evie wouldn't look twice at Scott, a janitor still living with his mother much less let him intimidate her. Still, Tapply's often elegant prose is a pleasure, and fans will cheer Brady throughout. The book is from the "soft-boiled" school of mystery writing, but Brady is a pretty good egg. Author tour.
