Deadbeat
An Angela Mattelli Mystery
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In Deadbeat by Wendi Lee, Boston P.I. Angela Matelli returns to solve a mystery involving a stolen identity...but the person responsible is dead, and now her own client is the prime suspect in the crime.
Angela Matelli has a brownstone (and mortgage) in East Boston, a large, somewhat eccentric, extended Italian family, and a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to find the right man, settle down, and shut down her business. In her late twenties, having recently left the Marines, Angela is now scratching out a living as a private investigator on Boston's mean streets.
Cynthia MacDonald wants Angela to find the person who is using her identity to run up fraudulent credit card bills, and ruining her credit rating in the process. Angela finds it surprisingly easy to track the woman responsible for the "true-name" fraud of Cynthia MacDonald. Lisa Browning, however, is a single mother trapped in a financial bind, and Angela can't help but take pity on her. Instead of turning her in, Angela decides to give her a chance to roll over on the people above her in the fraud ring.
But then Lisa Browning is murdered. Feeling responsible, maybe a bit guilty, and definitely angry, Angela decides to go after the person who murdered Lisa Browning. The only problem is that it may well have been the person who hired Angela to find her in the first place.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Boston PI Angela Matelli may be an expert at aikido with a wry sense of humor and a social conscience, but her engaging traits can't conceal the utter predictability of her third adventure (after Missing Eden, 1996). She is approached by an irascible, hostile and outraged client: someone has run up $75,000 in bills on her credit cards, destroying her credit rating. Angela uses her considerable street-smarts to quickly find the culprit, Lisa Browning, a vulnerable, appealing, financially strapped single mom who has been drawn into crime by more sinister players. When Lisa is bludgeoned to death, Angela suspects her surly client. After an attempt is made on her own life, however, she zeros in on the other members of the fraud ring. Although buoyed by a lively galaxy of Lisa's relatives (a relentlessly nosy mom, a charming brother who might be mob connected), this mystery fails to overcome its easily spotted culprit and far-fetched plot twists: Why, for instance, would a crack crime-scene unit overlook a vital phone tape, leaving it for Angela to discover?
