Deal on Ice [Large Print]

I ran into deal about a year ago in a bookshop on Marathon Key. The owner knows his Florida mystery authors and tipped me to the Deal series. I have since been working the series and came across Book Deal recently. (apparently it is a reissue of a novel previously published under a differen title. but I could not quite figure this out.) Deal, as everyone who reads the series knows, is the former policeman son of developer father who has (maybe) killed himself. He has taken over the almost bankrupt family business and has begun to establish himself as an honest restorer/developer of historicaly important architectural structures. (Usually the occupation of the bad guy in South Florida novels, and with good reason if you've seen most of their work in the Keys.) Deal's misadventures have led to attempts on the life of his wife, Janice, as well as himself, and she suffers the anomie of severely harmed victims. Thus these novels constantly return to the theme of the adventures of separated but not single Deal and his ex-partner and buddy now P.I. Driscoll, who regularly encounter ladies with a variety of motivations.In one novel an old girlfriend, in another a Anti-Castro cuban, and so forth. This novel opens as Deal encounters Janice who is working in an old-fashioned bookstore owned by his friend Arch in one of those rambling strip stores along Red Road or Bird Drive on the edge of Coral Gables. The machinations of a large corporation to build a Superstore across the street eventually leads to a string of murders in which one character's association with another takes Deal and Janice across town (to the Capone suite in the renovated Biltmore) to across the country ( a computerized cathedral in Omaha - where Arch's sister worked as a programmer.) One bit of fun is the Ma and Pa hit team. - We never do see the outcome, but when Pa, celebrating a hit by playing golf for the first time, is constantly harassed by a pushy player just as his putt sinks, he leaves with a driver but returns empty handed.- And his frumpy wife , the kick boxer, is a fright. The conclusion, in a blizzard in Omaha, is enough to make anyone accustomed to Winter escapes to forgive the Sunshine state for any and all hurricanes. A great, suspensful conclusion. And by the way, Deal and Janice's (maybe) reconciliation scene in the kitchen about midway through the book is a hot, comic bit of erotica. All in all, this book has a bit of everything and in nice proportion. If you like the Deal series,you'll really like this one.

Standiford has topped himself.His wonderfully drawn everday hero, John Deal, is out to find who killed his friend, bookstore owner, Arch Dolan. He teams up with estranged wife, Janice, for the ride of their lives. Don't miss out on this one. Standiford writes a wonderfully stylish thriller

DEAL ON ICE Les Standiford HarperCollins, Feb 1997, $23.00, 231 pp.