Deal to Die For

John Deal #3

by Les Standiford

Small-time building contractor John Deal's life is unraveling faster than a film reel spinning off a projector. His best friend Barbara Cooper takes her own life--but does she? Unconvinced that Barbara's death is a suicide, Deal begins an investigation that pulls him into the vortex of a scheme of ruthless Chinese gangsters looking to make a killing in the movie industry.

Genres: Mystery

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Les Standiford is a historian and author and has since 1985 been the Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program. Standiford has been awarded the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and belongs to the Associated Writing Programs, Mystery Writers of America, and the Writers Guild.

Reviews

[Zjay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character is a fellow I can relate to. He is a mild-mannered head of a construction company in South Florida. He would not hurt anyone. Suddenly, his world is turned upside down. His wife has an accident, a mental breakdown, and then decides to leave him and their three-year-old daughter to find herself. His female friend's mother dies and, when he goes to console that friend, he finds her dead. Did she commit suicide or not? Was she depressed because she had told her sister that she was adopted? And the sister, a beautiful though not very successful actress, asks him and his detective friend to find her biological mother, and then the actress mysteriously disappears. What else could go wrong? Not much until some Chinese guys from the West Coast try to kill him. A real page-turner.

[Betty Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good author, great locale.