High Fall

Kiernan O'Shaughnessy #3

by Susan Dunlap

When Kiernan O'Shaughnessy shows up at the San Diego bluffs off Gliderport to watch the filming of a new movie, she hardly expects to run into a media circus. It turns out that a talented, confident nineteen-year-old stuntwoman named Lark Sondervoil has invited the press to watch her perform the Gaige Move - a notoriously difficult stunt, or "gag, " invented years earlier by a master gymnast named Greg Gaige. Gaige was killed in the middle of a stunt ten years earlier, and no one has ever performed up to his extraordinary standard. Until now. Expectations are high. But nobody - not the press, not the film crew, certainly not Kiernan herself - expects Lark's move to turn into disaster when she takes a misstep and plunges over the bluffs to her death. The filmmakers insist it's merely an accident - an occupational hazard of being in a dangerous profession. But Kiernan's curiosity about this case moves beyond the mere interests of justice. She had studied gymnastics herself once, long ago. And her teacher was none other than . . . Greg Gaige. As Kiernan relentlessly dogs the people who knew Lark, and who remember Greg, she exposes the darker side of the movie business. And she's forced to confront both the grim realities of the present, and the painful, half-buried ghosts of her past.

Genres: Mystery

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Susan Dunlap is best known for her Jill Smith detective series, but she is a prolific and much loved writer of crime and mystery fiction, including award-winning short stories.

Reviews

[Cactuskid · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too much fluff and repeats, not much of a story but it did get interesting at the end - but not enough to give it more than one star. It's about a stunt man in the movies and how Kiernan was obsessed with him as she had met him twice and really couldn't get over his death. Turned out to be a mystery.

[Catsalive · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked Kiernan but the story didn't grab me because it seemed a bit silly. I couldn't help wondering what Tchermak would think of her just taking of with old Luke Correra.

blurb:
Kiernan O'Shaugnessy, the doughty, acid-tongued 40-ish PI and former forensic pathologist introduced in A Pious Deception, moves inside the Hollywood stunt world to probe two murders spaced 10 years apart. The stunt lore and forensics in the latest Kiernan adventure nearly compensate for its implausible, contrived plot.

Stuntwoman Lark Sodervoil, 19, aims at becoming the first person to replicate the spectacular multi-flip known as the Gaige Move but dies in the attempt, plunging over a 500-foot bluff. The gag, or event, is directed by Cary Bleeker, who's been dogged by bad luck ever since the fiery death a decade before of Greg Gaige, who wasn't adequately protected in a fiery stunt. Lark's plunge was witnessed by five people who had also seen Gaige go up in flames. But perception is not reality.

Suspecting foul play in Lark's death and out of respect for Gaige, whom she had slightly known and greatly admired, Kiernan investigates and finds that the recent death leads directly to the earlier one. Readers hoping that Kiernan will finally fall for Brad Tchernak, her level-headed dog-sitter, houseman and gourmet chef, will be put on hold again, as the tiny PI finds another object for her affections.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never did figure out who killed Lark. I might have missed something. Excellent writing.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kiernan #3

[Lbaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay, nothing more.